WEBVTT 1 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:21.079 From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot com. This is the 2 00:00:21.079 --> 00:00:35.320 power Line Show with your host Steve Hayward. Well, hi everybody, and 3 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:40.520 welcome to a classic format edition of the podcast featuring me in conversation with a 4 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:46.399 special guest. And today May First turns out to be Victims of Communism Memorial 5 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:49.759 Day. I guess we're trying to steal one from the comedies from their old 6 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:54.719 May Day Maypoul celebrations. In any event, several months ago I sat down 7 00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:58.920 with Elizabeth Spalding, who was the chairman of the board of the Victims of 8 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:04.239 Communism Memorial Foundation, which has opened a fabulous museum on Cold War history right 9 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:08.200 in downtown Washington, d C. And so it's a project I have followed 10 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:12.159 for many years. And Elizabeth walks us through the story of how the museum 11 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:17.640 was founded, how it was designed, why it's important to keep the independence 12 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:19.959 of the museum away from you know, people like the smith Sonyan Her Congress 13 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:25.840 and so forth, even though it is a congressionally chartered museum. And then 14 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:30.480 just a couple months ago, I was asked by the Victims of Communism Memorial 15 00:01:30.519 --> 00:01:34.519 Foundation to give a talk at an annual conference about Reagan and Churchill on the 16 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:38.040 Cold War, since I'd written a whole book comparing the two great statesmen. 17 00:01:38.519 --> 00:01:44.200 And so this episode comes in two parts. It's my conversation with Elizabeth and 18 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:49.680 then a recording of my talk given in March. So with that, mark 19 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:53.760 your own celebration with a sack dance in the end Zone of Communism, with 20 00:01:53.879 --> 00:02:00.519 this conversation beginning right now. So, Elizabeth, the Victims of Communism Museum 21 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:02.959 has been a project I know that's been a long time in the making. 22 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:07.799 So I guess sort of ticket from the top and tell us a little bit 23 00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:12.400 about its origins, what it's doing now, what the ambitions of it are 24 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:15.039 for, and then I'll have a bunch of follow up questions about things. 25 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:20.159 Sounds great, Well, it's good to be with you, Steve. Always 26 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:23.159 right. We've been listeners. We've been talking about doing this for what two 27 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.439 years now, and we keep not making it happen because we're lame anyway. 28 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:31.400 But the background is interesting. It's a museum that was about thirty plus years 29 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:38.639 in the making because it goes back to a unanimous Act of Congress when the 30 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:47.240 Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was authorized in the end of nineteen ninety three and 31 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:53.439 signed into law by President Bill Clinton. And so stop right there. I'm 32 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:57.080 not sure I realized that there was actually an official government role in getting it 33 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:00.840 started, right, No money, no federal money. That might be a 34 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:04.039 good thing, yeah, right, okay, exactly, No, not at 35 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:08.800 all. So, uh, the idea for VOC came about because of people 36 00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:15.800 forgetting what the Cold War had been and what communism had meant in terms of 37 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:21.319 the Soviet version. Uh, and and then people didn't realize there was still 38 00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:29.800 communism right right, and and so there were various people who were in politics, 39 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:34.039 both in terms of Congress but also outside saying let's go ahead and do 40 00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:38.199 some sort of educational institution. And it was determined, you know, have 41 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:46.879 a nonprofit educational institution. And the it wasn't called VOC then that was it 42 00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:53.960 was incorporated as that after. But the the the authorization for it was that 43 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:59.319 it was supposed to be focused on educating about the Communist Holocaust, so that 44 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:03.639 people would un understand that there hadn't just been one holocaust but two. Correct, 45 00:04:03.719 --> 00:04:09.319 and more than one hundred million people have been killed by communist regimes. 46 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:14.240 So this is a huge figure that people don't realize that it's more than those 47 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.079 who have been killed by World War One and World War Two combined. Right, 48 00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:24.319 So fast forward a bit. The first part of what VOC was authorized 49 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:28.839 to do after it got incorporated and started was to build a memorial, and 50 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:33.600 so money had to be raised for that, and that was dedicated in two 51 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:39.279 thousand and seven by President George W. Bush. So we always VOC are 52 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:44.199 very proud of being non partisan, bipartisan, and that you know, education, 53 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:49.160 you have to educate everybody. So that took a long time, right 54 00:04:49.639 --> 00:04:57.519 to raise the money we had. We were given a small plot of federal 55 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:04.839 parkland that is at at New Jersey and Massachusetts Avenues and people can go and 56 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:10.600 see that. And then programming, you know, educational programming was part of 57 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.480 what VOC was supposed to do. But there was always this idea as well 58 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:18.079 for a museum because of what the Holocaust Museum had been able to do, 59 00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:25.680 but no federal money. So now fast forward another fifteen years, and it 60 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:30.000 took a long time, but we finally raised enough money to do what we 61 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:32.839 call our Jewel Box Museum, which is located in Washington, d C. 62 00:05:33.079 --> 00:05:39.279 On McPherson Square. Ah, So you actually got a physical location people can 63 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:43.120 come, and that's right. It's not a virtual museum. We have things 64 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:46.480 online and we encourage people to go online, and we are building more online 65 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:50.560 to go with our Jewel Box museum. But we wanted something that was bricks 66 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:57.839 and mortar. And it's in the space where originally it was a university club 67 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:00.800 location first many many moons ago, and then it was the United Mine Workers 68 00:06:00.839 --> 00:06:09.839 Association building and they were anti communists. So it's actually appropriate that VOC has 69 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:14.079 its museum right in that space. Well, you make an important point, 70 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:17.720 and of course, to reiterate what I put in the introduction. You've written 71 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:20.959 a lot on the Cold War over the years, including you know, one 72 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:26.839 of the greatest Cold warriors of all Harry Truman. Right. I know some 73 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:30.040 people on our team, so to speak, maybe forget that sometimes I'm not 74 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:32.480 sure. Certainly, Ronald Reagan never did you love Truman? Right? And 75 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:36.000 talked about Truman, and they talked about him, and you and I are 76 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:42.360 out here for the Age of Reagan conference, the first one that the Reagan 77 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:46.560 Library and the Foundation and Institute have held, right as far as I understand 78 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:53.519 from you know, major bringing together this many scholars and so what was interesting 79 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:56.639 for me, and I want to hear about your panel. What was interesting 80 00:06:56.639 --> 00:07:01.319 for me is in my paper by the time I had submitted what my topic 81 00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:05.639 was, and then I came here and I did some research. My topic 82 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:11.240 is still the same, but I went back farther and farther because I was 83 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:15.720 supposed to be focusing on March nineteen eighty three and the Evil Empire speech and 84 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:19.720 the SDI speech. But because of having done all that work on Truman, 85 00:07:20.439 --> 00:07:26.720 and I'm really interested in the connections and how Reagan does talk about Truman. 86 00:07:26.839 --> 00:07:30.800 And so anyway I with Reagan, I kept going back farther and farther in 87 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:35.040 the archive here and finding things from the nineteen sixties and going back to the 88 00:07:35.160 --> 00:07:43.040 nineteen forties. And so I did in my panel presentation talk a little bit 89 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:46.480 about nineteen eighty three, but it was more what made Reagan Reagan, you 90 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:48.759 understand this kind of thing. It's your approach to and how he got to 91 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:53.120 nineteen eighty three. Well, let's back up for a minute about because you 92 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:57.759 know you've emphasized now that no federal money for the Victims of Communism Museum and 93 00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:05.800 Memorial was that by choice by the founders of it or was that by you 94 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:07.079 know, oh, yeah, well, we'll give a federal charter, but 95 00:08:07.160 --> 00:08:11.199 we really don't want to give you any money because I don't know, indifference 96 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:16.920 or apathy, ignorance. I think it was a combination of factors. Some 97 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.639 of it was that the founders of the organization didn't want federal money and didn't 98 00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:30.360 want federal intrusion possible control. But also the sponsors in Congress said, well, 99 00:08:30.399 --> 00:08:33.120 we can give you something, you know, with no money. We'll 100 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:37.159 give you the land for the memorial, but if you know, if we 101 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.720 don't have to give you money, then this will go through. Yeah, 102 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:43.840 right, And so I think that was on that side, and there were 103 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:50.919 actually some very strong Republican members, anti communists, who didn't want the project 104 00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:56.159 to receive federal money, so they wouldn't have voted for something that they believed 105 00:08:56.200 --> 00:09:01.360 in if it had received federal funds. From time to time, we on 106 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:05.399 the board at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation have discussions about whether we should 107 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:11.399 take federal money for the museum, but so far that hasn't happened, and 108 00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:18.720 we have accepted donations from formerly communist countries that are now democracies. All right, 109 00:09:18.759 --> 00:09:22.080 and the people that fought communism and helped to tear down the wall, 110 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:28.120 so to speak, they get rid of the Iron curtain. They to use 111 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:33.159 both presidents, since we're talking about both Truman and Reagan. They really want 112 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:39.799 to have this museum flourish, and it's been very rewarding to take dignitaries and 113 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:45.960 others from from those countries through the museum for special tours. Right, Yeah, 114 00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:50.360 I mean I've noticed what where if I've been overseas, Prague, Budapest, 115 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:54.960 a couple of places in Poland, they all have Reagan statues in Reagan 116 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.799 squares, in Reagan streets. You know, it's on their minds. You 117 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:01.799 can see why they would be keen. We have a sorry on this. 118 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:07.320 We have a map film in Gallery three at the museum, and I did 119 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:13.080 the content for the most part of the museum, worked with other scholars, 120 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:16.639 but I was primary on it. And so and we as a team worked 121 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:22.919 with a couple of different firms that have done design work for the Holocaust Museum, 122 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:28.360 the Spy Museum, the World War II Museum, Normandy Museum over in 123 00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:35.200 Front and so what was interesting is in giving them content, writing things for 124 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:43.120 them, including scripts for these films, they sometimes wouldn't know the subject. 125 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:46.320 I mean they really didn't know the subject right. So it was educating these 126 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:50.960 designers. And so I said, well, how about you know, you've 127 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.720 got this concept for a map film, and we have to make sure we 128 00:10:54.840 --> 00:11:01.279 have both the part about the repression, so people understand why there were victims 129 00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:05.679 of communism created as soon as the Soviet Union starts right well even before because 130 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:09.000 it's not called the Soviet Union right away, as soon as the coup happens, 131 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:16.039 the Bolshevik Revolution. But I also wanted to make sure we were showing 132 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:22.320 the resistance right from from behind the Iron Curtain, behind the Bamboo curtain elsewhere, 133 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:26.600 but also the outside pressure. So we had to have tear down this 134 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:31.399 wall in the in the map film, and so there's a there's a brief 135 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:35.480 part with clip from Reagan on tear down this wall. And then I wanted 136 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:41.919 to make sure there was a passage from Truman and so that there's no there's 137 00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:48.200 no video, but we were able to do audio voiceover so you'll like this. 138 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:52.000 I have a passage from from the Iron Curtain speech, the famous one 139 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:58.039 from from the passage you can imagine from Churchill while the map is going red 140 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:03.159 right right, and then it segues the next speaker that you hear is Truman 141 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.320 from the Truman Doctrine speech talking about the two ways of life and all too 142 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:11.159 often the choice is not a free one. And then it goes from there. 143 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:15.200 But by the time we get to we have immersive moments in the map 144 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:20.440 film. But by the time we get to the John Paul the Second and 145 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.039 the Pope, you can I mean John Paul the Second and Reagan you can 146 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:28.480 use the footage, right, you have really good footage to show. So 147 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:33.879 it's good to have both the resistance part, the outside pressure, and then 148 00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:39.399 the repression part. Right. So I'm not quite sure how to post this 149 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:45.200 question. What's on my mind is this, to my mind lamentable. I 150 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:48.559 could use a stronger or more pejorative term than that, or several of anti 151 00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:54.879 anti communism. This goes back decades, right. It was no matter how 152 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:58.960 solidly you could document the crimes of Stalin, the body count and so forth, 153 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:03.440 there's always just been this resistance from the left. I guess I just 154 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:09.480 have to be direct about this for giving it the equal emphasis of the Holocaust 155 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:11.480 of under the Nazis and I don't know. This drives me crazy. Is 156 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:15.639 that has that been sort of in the ether as you press forward with this 157 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:20.519 project, have you have you encountered some either indifference or even opposition because of 158 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:24.559 this old strain of anti anti communism. So one one story that might help 159 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:33.240 on this. We had a reviewer from PBS, from the local DC affiliate 160 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:41.080 w E t A. And she's the person that does their short little reviews 161 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:46.559 of things around town. Right. So this woman finds the museum and she 162 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:52.639 contacts the director of communications at VOC, who then contacts me, can you 163 00:13:52.679 --> 00:13:58.279 do a special tour of the museum for this interviewer? And I said absolutely, 164 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:03.320 So she comes first to do a look sie and we end up spending 165 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:09.039 about two hours together. She's an art professor. She's clearly an old liberal 166 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.799 type, right, and she was a little bit I mean, she might 167 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:16.720 have been a sixty something so, but she's you know, she's younger than 168 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:26.080 old liberals, right, And so she was almost exercised annoyed. She says, 169 00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:30.080 I looked you up. I looked up victims of Communist Memorial Foundation, 170 00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:33.919 and there are a lot of conservatives affiliated with this organization. And I said 171 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:37.919 yes, and she said, but this isn't about conservatism and said no, 172 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:43.480 and she said everybody should come and see this museum. She did, she 173 00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:48.559 did, and she said, I you this is this is correct. What 174 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:52.919 you were putting in this museum is correct. The information is correct, the 175 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:56.679 images are correct. And so we went through and she asked me questions, 176 00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:00.159 but she was reading what was on the walls, she was looking at the 177 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:05.320 films. And then we also have we're very fortunate to have the Nikolai Getman 178 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:07.840 art collection. It's this is a Gulag collection. It's the only one of 179 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:16.360 its kind. And it's been called the the visual analog to the Gulag Archipelago. 180 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:20.799 Interesting visual analog to the Gulog archipelago. And so this is do you 181 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:24.919 know about this artist? So he was in the Gulag. Of course he 182 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:28.879 was sent for no good reason. He survived the Gulog. He did. 183 00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:35.360 He had about a seven year sentence. He and he gets out and he's 184 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:45.200 Ukrainian uh. And he then paints in secret because it's still the Soviet Union 185 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:48.919 when he gets out. He's an artist and he has to hide what he's 186 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:52.360 doing, even from his wife. I think I have heard the story, 187 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:58.279 but keep going. So he has his easel right, and he works on 188 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:03.679 landscapes of where he was in the Gulag, and he can put up a 189 00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:10.320 landscape when somebody comes into the studio room. But he has fifty paintings that 190 00:16:10.399 --> 00:16:15.159 he did all from based on his Gulag years, and there are a handful 191 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:22.960 of landscapes, but there over half the collection is very stirring, strong, 192 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:29.279 difficult pieces. And so this art professor who says, I'm going to say 193 00:16:29.559 --> 00:16:32.559 I'm going to come back. I'm going to do my PBS piece and it's 194 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:37.000 going to be positive about why people should come to this museum. She's looking 195 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:40.080 at this art and she says this is fabulous art, and she's able to 196 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:47.480 tell me more about the art. But it was fascinating to meet with her. 197 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:53.039 And she didn't understand why people couldn't be anti tootalitarian, and so I 198 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:57.120 kept saying, I'm anti Tootalitarian. And obviously, you know Reagan, I've 199 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:03.519 been very struck going through the archives this week. He was he would interchange 200 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:07.880 use of totalitarian and communist. He knew what totalitarian and totalitarianism was, and 201 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:12.400 then communism and Nazism were forms of it, right, were types of it. 202 00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:18.039 And so this woman she ended up doing a really great This professor, 203 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:22.039 she ended up doing a really great to three minute piece, and she talked 204 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:26.680 about how it was. In her piece, she said, this is both 205 00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:32.559 anti Nazi and anti communist. Ah, And I thought to myself, if 206 00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:40.240 we could have everybody understand that, including academics right right who are teaching the 207 00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:45.559 rising generations, then we would finally say, Okay, I'm anti tootalitarian, 208 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:52.000 that includes being anti communist. And what's the problem, right, Yeah, 209 00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:56.319 you know, I wonder. I mean, obviously, the reason I brought 210 00:17:56.319 --> 00:18:00.960 all that up is I'm very cranky about anti anti communism and the double standards 211 00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:04.519 of moral judgment. We bring up the intensity of moral judgments right. On 212 00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:08.720 the other hand, you know are you may have seen some of the surveys 213 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:12.599 about this. Our Jewish friends are rightly worried about that. As we put 214 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:17.160 more and more time between US and World War two. First of all, 215 00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:21.799 the people who the number of people who still know about it from firsthand, 216 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:26.480 not many left right. And more time goes on and you're starting to hear 217 00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:30.839 people history has not taught very well as one of the problems. But there 218 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:34.039 is this worry that seems to be valid that well, it's going to be 219 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:37.720 not exactly normalized, but it's not going to be fifty years from now the 220 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:44.960 big deal that it's been in the post war years. So maybe we might 221 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.319 reach a new equilibrium where somebody liked this PBS art critic, who's probably a 222 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:55.839 conventional liberal other ways comes along, and that might actually actually rescue in the 223 00:18:55.880 --> 00:19:00.680 long term historical memory of what's in common of both genocides. Right, you're 224 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:06.759 making you're you're making me bringing out my optimism and hopefulness. And this is 225 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:12.359 also this year is actually the seventieth anniversary of the big totalitarianism conference that was 226 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:18.559 done in Boston, and you know where you had all the big names, 227 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:26.400 including Hannah Rent and I mean it was it was historic cultural freedom people or 228 00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:32.240 something else. It's where you get the totalitarian model really comes out of it, 229 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:37.720 and and Friedrich and eventually Brzhinski who put together that, and others, 230 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:41.440 but the Harvard School of thought on this comes out of that conference. And 231 00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:47.440 so I've actually been thinking a lot about the about totalitarianism. Not that I 232 00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:52.400 wasn't in making the museum, I was immersed in it, but I think 233 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:59.680 this is something that as as we get farther along, students are looking at 234 00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:03.720 Reagan's ancient history. Now, right, It's not just it's not just that 235 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:08.839 the Bolshevik Revolution and the start of victims of communism is ancient history. It's 236 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:15.160 that forty years ago is ancient history to college students and high school students and 237 00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:21.839 younger. So, how do we look back on this whole period, both 238 00:20:21.880 --> 00:20:27.759 the short century of the twentieth century as well as this first part of the 239 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:33.119 twenty first century where you're still dealing with so much that is really fallout from 240 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:37.440 the twentieth century, And it does all go back to this ism, right, 241 00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:41.640 and that's going to be that's what we have to teach, right, 242 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:49.599 And so I think that getting this right and ending up having students understand that 243 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:56.319 they want to be anti tootalitarian both you know, anti Nazi, anti communist, 244 00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:59.160 anti fascists, the whole you know, just you want to be anti 245 00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:03.119 right, Yes, yes, right, exactly, And I think I think 246 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:06.200 there's some room to do that. But of course then we've got all sorts 247 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:08.480 of disturbing things going on. Well, I well, that actually leads me 248 00:21:08.519 --> 00:21:11.960 to my next question. Although I'm going to move this microphone. Your microphone 249 00:21:11.960 --> 00:21:15.599 looks like it's gone off. I don't know why leave it alone though, 250 00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:18.759 And I'll do that because the mine's working. Okay. So three two one. 251 00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:22.880 That brings me to my next question, which is a few minutes ago 252 00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:26.319 you mentioned the bamboo curtain, you know, the iron curtain in the Eastern 253 00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:33.720 Europe, the bamboo curtain. So how do you handle China, either presently 254 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:36.440 or or how are you planning to handle it in the future? Right, 255 00:21:36.920 --> 00:21:42.359 So in the museum, the Mao is the mass murder. That's the panel 256 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:48.319 on Mao Mao as mass murder in the Map film. He you know, 257 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:52.519 he's standing there looking like he's gonna repress people. The next the next part 258 00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:56.880 of the map film is about Tibet in nineteen fifty that's one of the They 259 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:00.720 haven't even secured themselves. I mean, they've won, the communists have installed 260 00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:07.160 themselves in nineteen forty nine in the PRC, but they that's not enough. 261 00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:11.319 They got to go and take Tibet the next year. And the peaceful Tibetans 262 00:22:11.799 --> 00:22:18.440 already repressed. So it's clear. And the panel on nineteen eighty nine is 263 00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:25.720 Miracles and tears because I always want people to understand that you've got all these 264 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:30.240 great things that happen in Eastern and Central Europe in nineteen eighty nine, but 265 00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:36.359 it's also the year of the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests, and which 266 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:40.440 were not just protests in Tienanmen Square. A lot of students don't know that. 267 00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:45.680 And then the first visiting exhibit we had at the museum, because we 268 00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.839 have a room, a large room for visiting exhibits. The first, the 269 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:53.359 very first one was Timan nineteen eighty nine. It was a fabulous, fabulous 270 00:22:53.440 --> 00:23:00.359 exhibit that was put together by students who had formed, students who had survived 271 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:06.440 Tianman Square, and it brought together materials that were already here in the States 272 00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:11.240 and also materials that they got out of Hong Kong when the National Security Law 273 00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:15.240 went in and the only museum about Timan Square was there, and it was 274 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:18.559 you know, they were told you're going to be shut down, We're going 275 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:22.720 to confiscate things, and so they get addled, and so we had the 276 00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:27.680 best of the best in this exhibit. So you know, China was communist 277 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:34.000 and at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the CCP is still communist and 278 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:38.200 so like we do with every other country, we distinguished between the people who 279 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:42.640 were repressed and the regime the government. So for me, I will always 280 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:47.400 talk about, you know, the Russian people and other peoples that were held 281 00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:52.559 under the Soviet you know regime. And for China were very careful about talking 282 00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:57.039 about the Chinese people and all the different ethnic groups and religions and everything else 283 00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:04.279 going on as opposed to the Chinese Communist Party. Uh so there's plenty of 284 00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:08.319 evidence that it's communist, it's doing communist. I can't believe we have to 285 00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:14.359 have these kinds of conversations. People don't realize what Xijingping is doing. And 286 00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:19.920 and then VOC one of its research areas is China Studies, and we are 287 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:26.680 the place that has the Xingxiang police files. And that's the largest hack that 288 00:24:27.079 --> 00:24:32.559 was It was given to the VOC, but somebody went in and hacked into 289 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:41.599 the Chinese system and got downloaded their files about all these wigurs that they've imprisoned, 290 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:45.279 and so we have You can go and look at up Xingxiang police files 291 00:24:45.559 --> 00:24:52.880 at VOC and the you see page after page essentially of all of these people 292 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:56.680 who are being held prisoner from you know, teenager up through senior citizen. 293 00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:00.920 Yeah, you know it. We right, they celebrate the Berlin Wall coming 294 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:06.240 down in nineteen eighty nine, in November nineteen eighty nine, and very few 295 00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:08.440 people to be a while to start doing this. Very few people stopped to 296 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:14.759 think for a moment about China crushing the protests. That was June of nineteen 297 00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:18.799 exactly. So we have this the beginning of a very happy outcome in Eastern 298 00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:21.599 Europe in the end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union. 299 00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:25.440 And there was China in the middle of those unfolding events. And I 300 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:29.960 don't think we gave serious attention to the fact that China's saying that is not 301 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:33.599 happening here, that's right. And yet we went along and decided, oh, 302 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:34.720 we're just you know, let's put you in the World Trade Organization. 303 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:38.319 Where's let's put all our factories in your country. And Okay, that's a 304 00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:41.920 big, long subject. Unless you want to say more about that, I 305 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:47.759 don't know. Well, I think it's also worth noting that part of why 306 00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:52.759 the Eastern and Central Europeans decided to keep accelerating what they were already doing in 307 00:25:52.839 --> 00:25:56.960 nineteen eighty nine is because they were in support of what was going on in 308 00:25:56.119 --> 00:26:00.240 China. And then you know, the students in China saw what was going 309 00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:04.279 on in Eastern and Central Europe and they were so there was there was like 310 00:26:04.319 --> 00:26:10.519 this this good kind of symmetry going on and symbiosis going on, and the 311 00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:15.319 and the the Chinese Communist Party said no, right, they said, what 312 00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:18.200 how it's happened, It's never going to be that way. We are going 313 00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:22.240 to crush it. And and they did and uh, and so many people 314 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:26.640 don't don't think about the timeline. So I think that's a really important thing 315 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:36.079 to do. And then they don't realize that some of that was rooted in 316 00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:41.559 in real democracy. Right, the in Tiananmen Square, some of the students 317 00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:44.960 wanted real democracy, but some of the people there just would have been happy 318 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.880 to have had some sort of better reform. Right. There was a range 319 00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:53.400 of opinion, and so it's very difficult to penetrate in China. That's that's 320 00:26:53.440 --> 00:26:56.279 part of the reason that some of the movements that are going on now. 321 00:26:56.359 --> 00:27:02.079 I mean, you know, tank Man will always be that I image from 322 00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:06.400 nineteen eighty nine. But the White Paper movement is so very important because this 323 00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:10.200 is something that's been going on more recently in China, and it seems to 324 00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:12.880 be more. You know, we want to speak, we want to be 325 00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:18.319 free, we don't want to be shut down. We want There's another something 326 00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:25.000 going on right now in various places in China, and we can hope that 327 00:27:25.119 --> 00:27:30.720 it will it will bear fruit over time. But also we're here at a 328 00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:38.319 conference on Reagan. What would be a Reagan strategy for China? Acknowledging all 329 00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:42.240 the stuff that's intertwined economically, but what would you at least do in terms 330 00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:48.839 of the rhetoric, the meaningful rhetoric. You and I don't believe that words 331 00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:52.599 are just words. We actually think that there's meaning, especially for Reagan in 332 00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:56.920 what he said. And I do think that there's more that the West could 333 00:27:56.920 --> 00:28:02.599 be doing. There's more that the United States could be doing. And I'm 334 00:28:02.680 --> 00:28:07.759 concerned about that because one of the things that the best Cold War presidents got 335 00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:14.119 right, so including trim and and Reagan, is is they knew we're going 336 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:15.839 to go ahead and define it, we're going to talk about it, and 337 00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:19.160 then we're going to talk about it again. They didn't just say it one 338 00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:23.400 time, yes, right, And I don't think there's enough of that going 339 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:27.519 on. Yeah, all right, last question a more mundane one. But 340 00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:32.279 you mentioned you guys have a lot of resources online, and you already mentioned 341 00:28:32.279 --> 00:28:33.519 the painting collection. But what are some of things people can find on the 342 00:28:33.559 --> 00:28:38.559 website, what kind of talking documents, reading lists, interview with Robert Conquest. 343 00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:41.920 I don't know what are the kind of What are some of the things 344 00:28:41.079 --> 00:28:45.880 people can find that that would be of interest. So there are some things 345 00:28:45.880 --> 00:28:48.359 that are quite contemporary, for example, the jing Xiang police files, which 346 00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:53.279 are current. There are some great documents on I guess I shouldn't say great, 347 00:28:53.519 --> 00:29:00.839 but there's information on the China, on the Cuba prisons, which is 348 00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:06.200 communist, you know, and is real, and you can go and find 349 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:11.480 reports on that and other things about Cuba. Cuba is not a lot of 350 00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:17.559 people think that the Castra's retired, died and retired and therefore Cuba isn't communist 351 00:29:17.640 --> 00:29:19.759 anymore, but it's still communist too, so you can find that kind of 352 00:29:19.759 --> 00:29:25.720 thing. But one thing you really can find is we have curriculum, so 353 00:29:26.680 --> 00:29:30.759 please go look at our website for that, and we are in the midst 354 00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:36.799 of expanding our high school curriculum, and so we have an existing one, 355 00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:41.000 but now you can go and find more and there are resources. So it's 356 00:29:41.079 --> 00:29:48.119 not it's the curriculum lesson for each particular subject, but that lesson will also 357 00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:52.359 have links. We've really you know, teachers said I want to note, 358 00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:56.240 you know, what's the three minute thing I can show in my classroom? 359 00:29:56.359 --> 00:29:57.720 Or I have ten minutes? What can I show in ten minutes? We 360 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:02.039 have all that kind of stuff too as part of each lesson. And then 361 00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:07.680 we're in the midst of doing a middle school curriculum, and so people will 362 00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:12.039 be able to at least do six through twelve. Now, of course I 363 00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:15.720 would like to figure out how to do K five on this too, and 364 00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:18.440 maybe there will be that one day I'm chairman of the board, though I'm 365 00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.720 not. You know, I can't. I can't make them do everything right, 366 00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:25.960 right, Lizabeth, Thanks very much. Best of luck to the Victims 367 00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:30.000 of Communism Memorial Foundation and museum team. Come see the museum when you're next 368 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:32.839 in Washington, d C. I will. And now let's go have a 369 00:30:32.920 --> 00:30:36.839 drink at the bar. That sounds great, all right. Let's have a 370 00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:41.880 brief interlude here with a few remarks from Reagan himself reminding us of the connection 371 00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:45.119 between him and Churchill and their view of the Cold War, and then we'll 372 00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:52.240 get onto my talk that explains the whole scene more fully. Sir Winston Churchill 373 00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:56.039 refuse to accept the inevitability of war, or even that it was imminent. 374 00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:02.960 He said, I do not believe that Soviet Rush desires war. What they 375 00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:08.960 desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. 376 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:15.880 But what we have to consider here today, while time remains, is 377 00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:22.599 the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as 378 00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:37.839 rapidly as possible in all countries. Well, excise me, I get my 379 00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.599 Church of Glasses on here. Well, thank you for that kind of deduction. 380 00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:44.319 I'm really thrilled to be here. I mean, I've known about this 381 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:47.799 project in being for quite a long time, but then I've been gone from 382 00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:51.440 Washington for almost fifteen years now, so I hadn't been around to the step 383 00:31:51.480 --> 00:31:53.599 by step progress to get here, and so it's really thrilling to see it 384 00:31:55.880 --> 00:32:00.559 in the flesh and war. From here. Let's set the scene though for 385 00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:05.000 a moment. It's now thirty five years on since the Berlin Wall came down 386 00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:10.839 thirty thirty two years since the Soviet Union ended its existence, and so it's 387 00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:15.359 kind of faded into the mists and is really unappreciated by younger generations. I 388 00:32:15.440 --> 00:32:20.960 think that the conventional view of the Cold War, including during and all the 389 00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:23.480 way to the end of that climactic last decade, is that Cold War was 390 00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:29.319 a permanent feature of the world. Soviet Union was here forever. It wasn't 391 00:32:29.319 --> 00:32:31.319 going to be going away. We had to figure out some way to manage 392 00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:36.359 it. And that was true across the political spectrum. There some differences between 393 00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:40.359 the parties and schools of thought, but Kissinger certainly thought that the Soviet Union 394 00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:45.359 was around forever. It was ludicrous to suggest that this could be ended or 395 00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:52.119 that the Soviet Union would be defeated. And of course Kissinger, who just 396 00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.960 departed us recently, was always under just suspicion that he thought the job was 397 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:02.440 to lose slowly. A lot of conventional might say Chamber of commerce Republicans didn't 398 00:33:02.440 --> 00:33:07.000 really have the right appreciation of things, and the great words of Norman pot 399 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:10.559 Hertz, you're basic Chamber of commerce Republicans thought the Soviet Union was the federal 400 00:33:10.559 --> 00:33:17.480 trade Commission with nuclear weapons. Among more liberals, they clung to a theoretical 401 00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:22.759 idea of convergence, which was, yeah, they're sort of mean and bureaucratic 402 00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:27.160 and tyrannical, and they have the Gulag, but sooner or later they'll mellow 403 00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:30.680 and we'll sort of have a convergence between the two countries and the enmity and 404 00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:34.960 differences will disappear. From which came the idea that the way to solve our 405 00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.240 problems was to try to convert our political differences into technical differences. That's the 406 00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:43.960 premise of arms control. If we just do numbers of launchers and types of 407 00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:49.759 warheads, that's how we'll reduce Cold War tension. And the core insight of 408 00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:54.680 Reagan and Churchill almost alone is that, no, that's completely wrong. This 409 00:33:54.720 --> 00:34:00.680 is fundamentally a moral struggle, and until you make that the first principle of 410 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:06.480 policy, there will be no progress of any kind. And in the course 411 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:08.599 of doing research for you know, ended up being a seven hundred page book 412 00:34:08.639 --> 00:34:14.639 on the Reagan presidency, I got curious that, Gosh, Reagan quotes Churchill 413 00:34:14.679 --> 00:34:17.320 an awful lot, and not by the way just the quip suggests, I 414 00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:22.920 mean quoting Churchill, as has been observed as a bipartisan requirement of American politics, 415 00:34:22.280 --> 00:34:27.880 presidents of both parties do it. I remember Pamela Harriman saying, remember 416 00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:32.679 who was Randolph Churchill's first wife, Pamela Harriman saying that Bill Clinton reminded her 417 00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:37.400 of Churchill, and I thought, well, it's true. Neither one of 418 00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:42.000 them served in Vietnam. I guess there's that in common. But otherwise it 419 00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:45.960 was kind of a reach, you know, but Reagan quoted a lot of 420 00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:50.400 the substantive things that Churchill said, not just the familiar things that we know 421 00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:53.480 about, some very obscure. And then, with the magic of modern word 422 00:34:53.519 --> 00:35:00.480 searches, I discovered that Reagan quoted Churchill more often than every other American president 423 00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:04.719 combined. And that goes back to Hoover, who was the first American president 424 00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:07.719 to quote Churchill. That's before, of course, Churchill's famous prime minister. 425 00:35:08.079 --> 00:35:10.320 And by the way, if you're curious, we know John F. Kennedy 426 00:35:10.440 --> 00:35:16.639 was very fond of Churchill. I extrapolated a Churchill quotation rate over a theoretical 427 00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:21.000 two terms of John F. Kennedy, and Reagan still beat him by quite 428 00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:23.280 a bit. So I thought well, that's interesting. And then the more 429 00:35:23.320 --> 00:35:28.559 I looked, and then Lee has already hinted at something the remarkable similarities between 430 00:35:28.599 --> 00:35:32.119 the two of them. And it's not just in their insights, which I'll 431 00:35:32.119 --> 00:35:35.880 come to at the core of things here, but also certain aspects of their 432 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.800 character and even really their family stories. Now very different family background, Churchill 433 00:35:39.800 --> 00:35:45.639 from an aristocratic family, Reagan from a dowardly mobile, struggling working class family. 434 00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:52.599 But and you think Churchill the lifelong statesman and Reagan an actor most of 435 00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:55.119 his life who came to politics later on. Of course, on the other 436 00:35:55.119 --> 00:36:00.000 hand, from his earliest days in politics, Churchill's friends and his critics would 437 00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:04.960 say, Winston, you missed your calling in life. You should have been 438 00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:07.960 an actor. And you may know that. Reagan, in one of his 439 00:36:07.960 --> 00:36:12.360 final interviews in nineteen eighty nine with David Brinkley, said that he didn't know 440 00:36:12.400 --> 00:36:16.880 how anyone could be president who was not an actor. In other words, 441 00:36:16.960 --> 00:36:22.840 they both understood the dramatic requirements of modern democratic, mass media politics. By 442 00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:27.440 the way, Churchill was fascinated with the movie business. He spent some time 443 00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:30.440 with Charlie Chaplin in nineteen twenty nine and proposed writing some movie scripts for him, 444 00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:36.239 so maybe not so far apart in certain ways. Between these two men, 445 00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:43.440 you may know the family story. Both adored their fathers but were considerably 446 00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:46.920 distant from them. Both talked about their mothers as being the most important influence 447 00:36:46.920 --> 00:36:50.840 in their life. Churchill say, my mother's showing for me like the evening 448 00:36:50.920 --> 00:36:57.079 star, but from a distance less distance for Reagan. Both of them talked 449 00:36:57.079 --> 00:37:00.239 about their spouses in the same way. The last sins of Churchill's book My 450 00:37:00.320 --> 00:37:06.719 Early Life says, I married Clementine Hoser and lived happily ever afterward. And 451 00:37:06.760 --> 00:37:09.559 maybe you've seen this very thick book of letters from Winston and Clementine that's out 452 00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:15.599 a few years ago, very sentimental and romantic. Reagan, we have some 453 00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:17.840 of his notes to Nancy been published through the years. And Reagan liked to 454 00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:22.679 say at dinners and things. I'll quote him here, along came Nancy Reagan 455 00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:28.280 and saved my soul. Or think about their fondness for horses, expressed in 456 00:37:28.320 --> 00:37:34.320 similar ways, both remember of the Army cavalry. Keep in mind Churchill wrote, 457 00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:38.119 no one ever came to grief except honorable grief through riding horses. No 458 00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:43.400 hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle, and Reagan is 459 00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:45.519 famous for saying, there is nothing quite so good for the inside of a 460 00:37:45.559 --> 00:37:51.239 man then the outside of a horse. Reporters all thought that Reagan came up 461 00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:53.480 with that. It's actually from Xenophon's Art of Horsemanship, but doesn't matter. 462 00:37:53.519 --> 00:38:00.280 The fundamental point is the important thing. We all know, of course, 463 00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:04.760 that Reagan survived the assassin's bullet very bravely. In nineteen eighty one, when 464 00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:07.559 he finally came clear of anesthesia, really a couple of days later, still 465 00:38:07.559 --> 00:38:13.320 with a respiratory tube in his mouth, he scribbled on the notepad Churchill's famous 466 00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:19.920 line, There's nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without result, Although not 467 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.199 quite literally true, there was some result from that. He nearly died, 468 00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:28.000 right, It took months recovering in great pain. Churchill, of course, 469 00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:30.519 nearly killed by being hit by a car on Fifth Avenue in nineteen thirty two. 470 00:38:30.599 --> 00:38:37.079 I think Jim, when he looked the wrong way around that time thirty 471 00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:38.320 one, I knew you would know. You could probably tell them the day 472 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:50.480 and time of day. Of course, a tough crowd, as they say 473 00:38:50.480 --> 00:38:57.960 in the comedy clubs. All right, remember that both men were party switchers, 474 00:38:58.199 --> 00:39:00.400 and for the same reason and the fact throughout a lot of Democrats which 475 00:39:00.440 --> 00:39:05.000 parties in the eighties, and Reagan often had a ceremony at the White House 476 00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.320 to welcome a new Republican Party member, and he would always quote Churchill saying, 477 00:39:09.360 --> 00:39:14.159 some men change their principles for their party. Other men changed their party 478 00:39:14.199 --> 00:39:17.199 for their principles. But then as you get deeper into politics, you start 479 00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:22.599 to say that some of these seemingly superficial things, certain parallels of their life 480 00:39:22.599 --> 00:39:27.360 stories and character may have a relation to their political practice and political insight. 481 00:39:27.480 --> 00:39:31.000 I don't know, can't be proven. But one other I think really important 482 00:39:31.039 --> 00:39:36.360 parallel to keep in mind is that neither man was the choice of their party 483 00:39:36.360 --> 00:39:39.480 to be their leader at moments of crisis. In nineteen forty, Churchill was 484 00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:45.119 the last person the Conservative Party wanted as Prime Minister, and it was really 485 00:39:45.159 --> 00:39:47.800 only the Labor Party that put him over the top by most accounts. And 486 00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:52.679 in nineteen eighty, if we'd had the old smoke phil room, surely the 487 00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:57.000 Republican establishment would have picked Gerald Ford or Howard Baker or George Bush ahead of 488 00:39:57.079 --> 00:40:02.119 Reagan. Charles Percy said that when Reagan was nominated that this was a foolhardy 489 00:40:02.159 --> 00:40:07.639 idea. He said, Reagan's nomination will signal the beginning of the end of 490 00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:14.320 our party as an effective force in American political life in nineteen forty. My 491 00:40:14.360 --> 00:40:20.039 favorite quote from this is the Cabinet secretary John Colville. He said this in 492 00:40:20.079 --> 00:40:22.960 May nineteen forty. The mere thought of Churchill as Prime Minister sent a cold 493 00:40:23.039 --> 00:40:28.199 chill down the spines of the staff working at ten Downing Street. Seldom can 494 00:40:28.280 --> 00:40:32.199 a prime minister have taken office with the establishment so dubious of the choice and 495 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:37.920 so prepared to find its doubts justified. And other senior members of the Tory 496 00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:40.960 Party were saying church was not going to last five months my other things, 497 00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.880 they said, he's too old at sixty five, his time has passed. 498 00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:52.480 Reagan's case was equally shocking. I like to quote the late John P. 499 00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:54.800 Roach, an interesting man, a thoughtful liberal, former head of the Americans 500 00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:00.000 for Democratic Action who later became quite admirer of Reagan. By the way he 501 00:41:00.039 --> 00:41:06.599 wrote quote, Reagan's election was an eight plus earthquake on the political Richter scale, 502 00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:10.320 and it sent a number of eminent statesmen, Republican and Democratic into shock, 503 00:41:12.280 --> 00:41:14.320 and I've got a whole lot long list I won't go through, and 504 00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:16.400 the how of all the people saying there's no way he can possibly succeed, 505 00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:21.360 and all the reasons why, among which were He's going to be seventy years 506 00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:23.519 old in a couple months. It's way too old to be president. Just 507 00:41:23.679 --> 00:41:30.119 kind of a ironic and amusing just now. But I think what set them 508 00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:32.679 apart from the rest of their party was, I guess you'd put it this 509 00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:37.800 way, their iconoclasm, one of the fact that they had utterly independent minds. 510 00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:43.079 They always dissented, not just from liberal orthodoxy, but from their own 511 00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:45.960 parties orthodoxy. As I say, on the Cold War. It emerged later, 512 00:41:46.039 --> 00:41:50.119 of course Reagan's saying my view of the Cold War is we win and 513 00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:55.440 they lose. But she never articulated publicly because I think he understood how radical 514 00:41:55.480 --> 00:42:00.519 that would sound, maybe even frightening. I mean, he went as far 515 00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:02.880 as saying several times that, you know what everyone says, we should be 516 00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:06.719 afraid of an arms race. I'm paraphrasing here, But why be afraid of 517 00:42:06.719 --> 00:42:08.639 a race that we're going to win and that they're going to lose? You 518 00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:12.519 can't say that you couldn't say that then that was just heresy. But he 519 00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:15.239 wasn't willing to go that far in as public statements because I think he thought 520 00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:19.559 it was necessary to start sending those signals to the Soviet Union that we're not 521 00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:23.199 going to play the game by the old rules. You can think of other 522 00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:27.039 things by the way. I mean. Another parallel I think on politics was 523 00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:30.320 in the early thirties, late twenties, early thirties, Churchill opposed the dominion 524 00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:35.800 status for India, which caused a very big breach with his party that looks 525 00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.840 very much like Reagan's opposition to the Panama Canal Treaty in the nineteen seventies, 526 00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:44.760 a big breach with his own party also, and they split their parties over 527 00:42:44.760 --> 00:42:51.079 those issues. Right, So what accounts are their unusual and independent imagination? 528 00:42:52.199 --> 00:42:59.280 I think the first thing to bring to mind is they were both self educated 529 00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:04.800 in an important way. I've always thought that one of the most important accounts 530 00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:07.599 of Churchill's own education is from him from his book My Early Life, the 531 00:43:07.679 --> 00:43:13.440 chapter called Education in Bangalore. Because he'd gone to Sandhurst, the military academy, 532 00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:15.679 he learned all about military strategy and tactics, but he hadn't read the 533 00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:20.360 classics, he hadn't had a liberal arts education, and he knew this, 534 00:43:20.519 --> 00:43:23.199 and he understood that if I want to be a political success in the world, 535 00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:25.760 I need to know more. So, he might say, he gave 536 00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:30.920 himself his own graduate course, and he describes in that chapter all the books 537 00:43:30.920 --> 00:43:34.440 he read Plato, Aristotle, Scopenhower. Hegel, oh, my god, 538 00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:39.519 historians know McAuley Gibbon, right, long long list. Jim, of course 539 00:43:39.519 --> 00:43:42.559 can tell you every single one, and I'm forgetting a lot of them. 540 00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:49.159 He did leave out Machiavelli, who for prudent reasons, and he wrote something 541 00:43:49.199 --> 00:43:51.800 interesting. He said, you know, I got to read it on my 542 00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:54.400 own and form my own views. I didn't have some professor telling me, 543 00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:58.400 oh, you should think this way about it, or so and so is 544 00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:00.039 better on this subject. So he said, my own views, and what 545 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:07.039 I bit I took. And I think a similar a thing happens with Reagan. 546 00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:08.880 For him, it's later in life. It's in the nineteen fifties when 547 00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:14.039 he's touring the country for General Electric Theater and he's traveling by train. You 548 00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:16.960 may know that Reagan was afraid to fly and very seldom got an airplane, 549 00:44:17.400 --> 00:44:21.679 so to to our ge plans in thirty eight states, he set out from 550 00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:25.559 Los Angeles on the train, and that's long trips, and he would have 551 00:44:25.599 --> 00:44:29.159 a pile of books. And we know among those books were a lot of 552 00:44:29.199 --> 00:44:34.280 the early modern classics of conservatism, like Whittaker Chambers Witness Hi X, Road 553 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:38.920 to Serfdom, Henry Haslett's Economics, and one lesson charter subscriber a National Review 554 00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:43.519 when it launches a nineteen fifty five and he's scribbling notes on his note cards 555 00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:46.800 and working them into his speeches. And Reagan later on said, people say, 556 00:44:46.800 --> 00:44:51.360 who converted me from being a liberal democrat to a conservative? He said, 557 00:44:51.400 --> 00:44:52.920 well, I did it myself to my own reading and study, and 558 00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:55.800 no one who would ever take him literally or seriously about that, but it's 559 00:44:55.840 --> 00:45:02.159 true. And then, of course allow both men to say what to the 560 00:45:02.199 --> 00:45:10.000 conventional mind were outrageous things. So my favorites are again parallels is in nineteen 561 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.960 seventy six and again in nineteen eighty Reagan said, you know, fascism was 562 00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:20.920 really the basis of the New Deal. This horrified everyone. And my favorite 563 00:45:21.039 --> 00:45:25.800 response was the Washington Post news story that said the Washington Post contacted several historians 564 00:45:25.800 --> 00:45:30.400 of the New New Deal who have no idea what Reagan is talking about, 565 00:45:30.960 --> 00:45:32.639 which I thought, just you know, a nice barometer of the ignorance of 566 00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:38.639 Washington Post reporters or of New Deal historians. They kind of overlapped and in 567 00:45:38.679 --> 00:45:44.159 a Reagan instead of I'm sure his campaign advisors have said, you've got to 568 00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:46.199 say you were misunderstood, it's out of context, just make it go away. 569 00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:50.199 Of course, he didn't do that. He defended it straight up in 570 00:45:50.320 --> 00:45:53.119 September of nineteen eighty saying I hadn't mind. You know, if you look 571 00:45:53.159 --> 00:45:57.559 at the New Deal theorists and he named if you forgotten names to everybody, 572 00:45:58.119 --> 00:46:00.199 and their view was, you know, you want government of private resources. 573 00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:04.719 That's the economic theory of fascism. He didn't back down on it at all. 574 00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:13.559 In Churchill's case, the parallel was in it's June of nineteen forty five. 575 00:46:13.639 --> 00:46:17.599 Isn't that the famous speech Jim the Gestapo speech. Yeah, June of 576 00:46:17.639 --> 00:46:22.000 nineteen forty five. The war in Europe's over. If there's an election called, 577 00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:25.840 and Churchill says of the party that he's been in coalition with for six 578 00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:32.039 years, you cannot have socialism in England without some form of castopo the Labor 579 00:46:32.079 --> 00:46:36.719 Party, in which our civil servants will no longer be civil and no longer 580 00:46:36.840 --> 00:46:39.000 servants. And he went on to say, I'm sure they'd be horrified to 581 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:43.280 hear that, but it's the logical consequence of the chain of thought that they 582 00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:46.800 have of any economic system, depending on central planning, it'll just have to 583 00:46:46.800 --> 00:46:51.880 go that way, whether they mean to or not. Well, where'd he 584 00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:54.800 get it? You got it in the same place Reagan did, probably from 585 00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:59.840 Hyex Road to served him, certainly in Reagan's case, but probably in Churchill's 586 00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:06.519 case too. In fact, I've lost it here in my notes there it 587 00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:08.960 is. Hayak himself later wrote to Paul Addison, who wrote a very good 588 00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:14.480 book about churchill domestic policy. Hiak said, I'm afraid that there can be 589 00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:19.880 little doubt that Winston Churchill, somewhat unfortunately phrased Gestapo's Beach, was written under 590 00:47:19.880 --> 00:47:23.599 the influence of the Road to serve them. So no respectable people would quote 591 00:47:23.599 --> 00:47:29.280 these books. Doesn't matter, they're best sellers, but they would, right, 592 00:47:30.519 --> 00:47:35.960 all right, So then you get to the Cold War. I started 593 00:47:35.960 --> 00:47:38.280 out by saying a conventional view as well as Soviet Union's weird, but it's 594 00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:44.280 you know, it's a durable form of rule, Churchill said early on, 595 00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.239 as early as the Russian Revolution in nineteen seventeen. But then in later years 596 00:47:49.239 --> 00:47:57.159 he'd say the problem with communism is it's against human nature. It's unnatural. 597 00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:04.320 And Reagan said the same thing in the nineteen seventies. It's against human nature, 598 00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:07.320 it's unnatural. It goes against the fundamental human yearning for human freedom. 599 00:48:08.119 --> 00:48:12.280 Not many people talk that way at that level of politics. Not many people 600 00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:22.440 talk that way. And we all know that Reagan's one of the slogans that 601 00:48:22.519 --> 00:48:25.639 was used as peace through strength. It really came from Churchill. That was 602 00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:31.440 his strategy, starting with as Lee made reference to the famous Fulton speech that 603 00:48:31.519 --> 00:48:37.599 announced the coming of the Iron Curtain, that's the speech where Churchill said, 604 00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:40.400 we need to stand up diplomatically to the dictators and we have to arm ourselves 605 00:48:40.639 --> 00:48:46.400 for deterrent purposes. And looking back, and in his memoirs, Churchill said 606 00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:51.440 World War two would have been the eavisst war to prevent if we adopted that 607 00:48:51.519 --> 00:48:55.000 strategy. He said, we could have prevented World War two without the firing 608 00:48:55.039 --> 00:49:00.440 of a single shot that was Churchill's famous phrase. And then remember in the 609 00:49:00.519 --> 00:49:06.239 nineteen nineties, what did Margaret Thatcher say. She said, Ronald Reagan won 610 00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:12.159 the Cold War without the firing of a single shot. Not quite literally true. 611 00:49:12.199 --> 00:49:15.320 There were some shots fired in Grenada, you know, our bombing rate 612 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.480 on Libya, Libya being at least an adjunct partner of the Soviet enterprise. 613 00:49:20.679 --> 00:49:24.760 But she wasn't literally counting bullets. She understood. I think the Iron Lady 614 00:49:24.760 --> 00:49:28.599 had the Iron Curtain speech in the back of her mind when she made that 615 00:49:28.639 --> 00:49:37.639 statement, because she understood the grand strategy involved. And Wyatt departed. But 616 00:49:37.679 --> 00:49:40.599 there's another part of this, which is, you know, the criticism of 617 00:49:40.599 --> 00:49:45.199 Reagan throughout those years was, oh, gosh, you're going to be a 618 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:50.159 Cold War moralist. That's going to strengthen the Hawks and the Kremlin and make 619 00:49:50.239 --> 00:49:52.360 things worse. It's going to risk war, and it's going to make it 620 00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:57.719 harder to make a deal. And Reagan, and especially i think one of 621 00:49:57.760 --> 00:50:01.039 his most important supporters in the Advisors of William Clark, said, we think 622 00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:05.159 the opposite. We think by being tough, it's going to make it more 623 00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.760 likely we will get more cooperative Soviet leadership. Which does come along with Gorbachev. 624 00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:13.719 That's a long, unentangled story, but still the general storyline there is 625 00:50:13.760 --> 00:50:19.639 correct, I think. But in both cases Churchill and Reagan, they weren't 626 00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:23.880 warmongers seeking confrontation and then going home. They thought that would be how you 627 00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:29.639 would get a settlement. What Churchill said in the Iron Curtain speech was what 628 00:50:29.800 --> 00:50:34.159 is needed is a settlement, a good understanding on all points with Russia. 629 00:50:34.519 --> 00:50:37.880 And if you know this, part of anybody in America knows the story. 630 00:50:37.960 --> 00:50:42.280 But Churchill was always pushing, perhaps imprudently, perhaps too soon, that we 631 00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:46.079 need to reach a settlement with the Soviet Union, otherwise we do risk World 632 00:50:46.119 --> 00:50:51.800 War three. At the end of nineteen eighty one, Reagan said the following 633 00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:57.920 in an interview. I've always recognized that ultimately there's got to be a settlement, 634 00:50:58.840 --> 00:51:01.119 a solution. The other way. If you don't believe that, then 635 00:51:01.159 --> 00:51:06.480 you're trapped in the back of your mind the inevitability of conflicts. Someday that 636 00:51:06.559 --> 00:51:10.159 kind of conflict is going to end the world. So this was a man 637 00:51:10.159 --> 00:51:16.039 who had peacemaking at the front of his mind, but he departed from all 638 00:51:16.039 --> 00:51:20.079 the conventional wisdom. I call it if you want to use political theory jargon, 639 00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:22.039 modern neo Kantian wisdom that all we need to do is have warm, 640 00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:27.360 fuzzy feelings and that will work. He knew that toughness is what would work, 641 00:51:28.440 --> 00:51:30.880 not warm fuzzies. And that's one reason why when Reagan would say I'm 642 00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:37.599 for nuclear disarmament, nobody believed him. They thought he was lying or you 643 00:51:37.639 --> 00:51:45.599 know something right, So let me give you two more parallels between the two 644 00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:51.800 men. It jumped out of me. In nineteen forty eight, Churchill said 645 00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:55.079 the following in a speech, What do you suppose would be the position this 646 00:51:55.119 --> 00:52:00.480 afternoon had been communist Russia instead of free enterprise America, which had created the 647 00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:06.800 atomic weapon. Instead of being a somber guarantee of peace, it would have 648 00:52:06.840 --> 00:52:12.480 become an irresistible method of human enslavement. Okay, better us than them, 649 00:52:13.880 --> 00:52:17.559 then, if you know the story. In nineteen sixty seven, Reagan appeared 650 00:52:17.639 --> 00:52:22.400 as governor. First year as governor, he appeared on a television debate on 651 00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:27.519 CBS News with Robert F. Kennedy, and Reagan said the following. In 652 00:52:27.559 --> 00:52:29.760 the course of that debate, By the way, this debate, you couldn't 653 00:52:29.760 --> 00:52:31.920 find a transcript of it. For years, CBS buried it. Why because 654 00:52:31.960 --> 00:52:37.800 by all acknowledgments, including Kennedy's people, Reagan wiped the floor with Kennedy. 655 00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:40.679 You don't find any acknowledgment of this in the great Kennedy biographies and so forth. 656 00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:44.800 In later years, you can now see it on YouTube if you want, 657 00:52:44.840 --> 00:52:46.440 But for years you couldn't find it. I had. It was great 658 00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:51.360 difficulty. I finally was able to track down a transcript of it with help 659 00:52:51.400 --> 00:52:54.239 from ed Nist more than twenty years ago. Now here's what Reagan said in 660 00:52:54.280 --> 00:52:59.519 the middle of that debate. At the end of World War two, one 661 00:52:59.639 --> 00:53:05.360 nation the world had unprecedented power. We had the atomic bomb. The United 662 00:53:05.400 --> 00:53:07.840 States made no effort to oppose its will on the rest of the nations. 663 00:53:08.239 --> 00:53:12.920 Can you honestly say that had the Soviet Union been in a comparable position with 664 00:53:12.960 --> 00:53:16.360 that bomb or today's Red Chinese, that the world would not today have been 665 00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:22.079 conquered with that force? Baud be the same understanding that Churchill had about the 666 00:53:22.119 --> 00:53:24.480 matter. And by the way, Reagan brought that up a few times with 667 00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:30.000 Garbachev in their summits, much to the annoyance of the Soviet delegation that was 668 00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:37.360 fun. Finally all trought to a conclusion this way. In later years, 669 00:53:37.400 --> 00:53:43.559 both in the case of Churchill and Reagan, a lot of grudging admirers, 670 00:53:43.559 --> 00:53:46.159 maybe not ad myers, but people who grudgingly acknowledged their success and greatness would 671 00:53:46.159 --> 00:53:50.920 say, well, they were men out of the past, and yeah, 672 00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:57.079 it worked well for their time. And in Churchill's case this especially the thesis 673 00:53:57.079 --> 00:54:00.920 of William Manchester in his very popular three volume biography, is that well, 674 00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:07.159 Churchill was this holdover from the Victorian era, and that's why those particular virtues 675 00:54:07.199 --> 00:54:14.639 were useful and necessary then but kind of obsolete otherwise a museum piece. And 676 00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:20.079 a similar thing is said about Reagan that well he's sort of a person out 677 00:54:20.119 --> 00:54:22.800 of the fifties. Or the joke was, you know, he'll make movies 678 00:54:22.840 --> 00:54:25.800 for eighteenth century fox or something like that. Right, there was the little 679 00:54:25.880 --> 00:54:31.760 joke, but an anachronism of an older America. And I think that's wrong 680 00:54:31.840 --> 00:54:37.039 in both cases. Actually, what I say is, I don't think they 681 00:54:37.039 --> 00:54:39.880 were men of the recent past. I think there were men of the distant 682 00:54:39.960 --> 00:54:47.639 past. They're both classical men. I like the way John Lukatch, late 683 00:54:47.719 --> 00:54:53.119 Hungarian historian that Jim and I knew a little bit. He wrote the following. 684 00:54:53.239 --> 00:54:57.840 Contrary to most accepted views, we ought to consider the Churchill was not 685 00:54:58.039 --> 00:55:01.239 some kind of admirable remnant of a more heroic past. He was not the 686 00:55:01.320 --> 00:55:07.480 last Lion. He was something else. Now, Lukax didn't say what the 687 00:55:07.559 --> 00:55:10.000 something else is, but I will. They were the great sold men right 688 00:55:10.079 --> 00:55:17.400 out of the pages of Aristotle, I think. And so there's a broader 689 00:55:17.400 --> 00:55:22.639 point of this that I always try to bring to students. By the way, 690 00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:24.119 I'll just say it's a personal matter. It's a matter of great frustration 691 00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:28.800 to me when I hear young conservatives just coming up. I mean, Reagan's 692 00:55:28.840 --> 00:55:31.239 thirty five forty years behind us now, and they say, well, Reagan 693 00:55:31.239 --> 00:55:35.960 has no relevance to us today. Sometimes, I'm sure some of you have 694 00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:42.440 heard these phrases. They attack what they call zombie Reaganism, and I sometimes 695 00:55:42.440 --> 00:55:45.320 I have a long conversation about what do you exactly mean by that? Because 696 00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:52.119 it's usually wrong or incorrect and inaccurate, but above all thoughtless. The point 697 00:55:52.199 --> 00:55:57.639 is is that the kind of large sold statesmanship greatness I'm trying to draw to 698 00:55:57.639 --> 00:56:00.320 your attention here of these two men is the kind of thing that you can 699 00:56:00.400 --> 00:56:07.519 learn from any great statesman Lincoln, Washington, and it on a level of 700 00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:12.000 thought, it refutes the historicist hypothesis that were all just corks bobbing on the 701 00:56:12.039 --> 00:56:20.760 sea, driven by the waves of history. And so another answer to the 702 00:56:20.840 --> 00:56:25.360 question why were they different from their peers is that they transcended their environments in 703 00:56:25.400 --> 00:56:30.199 their time, as only great men can do, and thereby they bent history 704 00:56:30.239 --> 00:56:34.960 to their will, rather than succumbing to the supposed will of history itself. 705 00:56:36.760 --> 00:56:40.199 So close to two things quickly, there's the British historian Jeffrey Elton wrote, 706 00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:45.960 I think one of the best phrases about Churchill. He said, whenever I 707 00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:51.559 meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men great men moreover 708 00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:55.480 in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian. And 709 00:56:55.519 --> 00:57:00.639 there are times when I I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of 710 00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:04.960 Winston Churchill, whether they can see that no matter how much better the details 711 00:57:05.079 --> 00:57:08.840 often damaging of the man and his career become known, he still remains quite 712 00:57:08.880 --> 00:57:14.079 simply a great man. And I think the exact same thing can be said 713 00:57:14.119 --> 00:57:22.159 of Reagan and so the two last sendoffs is One of Ronald Reagan's principles that 714 00:57:22.159 --> 00:57:25.239 he learned from the show business was always leave your audience wanting more. That's 715 00:57:25.239 --> 00:57:29.599 why his speeches were shorter than the average politician. In my case, I 716 00:57:29.599 --> 00:57:32.400 have a whole book about the side by side of Reagan and Churchill that began 717 00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:35.679 us an accident. It was a spin off of my longer book. Is 718 00:57:35.719 --> 00:57:38.480 what I thought would be three paragraphs about Reagan and Churchill grow to twenty thousand 719 00:57:38.480 --> 00:57:43.239 words, which didn't work, and the publish said, make it a separate 720 00:57:43.280 --> 00:57:46.440 book. So I've done that, available at fine Amazon's everywhere, And as 721 00:57:46.519 --> 00:57:52.079 my mentor Stan Evans liked, say, my time is up and I thank 722 00:57:52.079 --> 00:58:46.920 you for yours. Ricochet Join the conversation.