Throwback Thursdays

President Reagan believed that the 4th of July was not just a day of celebrating our nation’s birthday but that it was also a day of coming together as an American Family. Here is President Reagan's address to the nation on the observance of Independence Day in 1984.

If you look back at Ronald Reagan’s career, whether you agree with his policies or not, there’s one thing no one can dispute, and that’s his staunch, hopeful patriotism. Journalist and author Nancy Gibbs wrote, “Hope is an infectious disease, and Reagan was a carrier. The country he courted and finally won over in 1980 was a dispirited place, humiliated abroad, uncertain at home, with a hunger for heroes but little faith that they could make any difference. But you can, he told us. I am not the hero, you are.” "Let us renew our faith and our hope," he declared in his first Inaugural Address. "We have every right to dream heroic dreams." And he would serve as Dreamer in Chief. "What I'd really like to do," he said after six months in the White House, "is go down in history as the President who made Americans believe in themselves again."

President Reagan often said that there are heroes all around us – we just don’t know where to look. These were President Reagan’s remarks at the Annual Convention of the United States League of Savings Associations in 1982.

The subject of today’s podcast is inflation…yes, just like the song, everything old is new again. What we’re going to hear today are two angles: a radio address he delivered on Inflation and Recession in 1975 and in the second half of the podcast, we’ll hear the president report directly after leaving Washington on how he handled the problem of inflation.

It was Ronald Reagan’s happiness, his optimism, his enjoyment of life and his undying belief in the inherent goodness and spirit of the American people that got us to believe in ourselves again and put our country back on track. That, more than anything else, is the enduring legacy of the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

The place is…Berlin and the date is June 1982, FIVE years before he delivered his historic speech at the Brandenburg gate, demanding that the wall be torn down. This was during the Brezhnev years, long before Gorbachev and Glasnost were in the picture. It’s easy to forget how clearly President Reagan expressed his disgust with the Soviets and the Berlin Wall, many years before the so-called climax at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987.

During President Reagan’s term in office, Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions which helped savings and loan banks deal with rising inflation and interest rates by further deregulating deposit rates.

Constructed in the early hours on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall was characterized by the Soviets as “a democratic anti-fascist protective structure.” Now isn’t that an interesting statement? Today Putin is using the same angle, claiming their intrusion into Ukraine is an anti-fascist gesture. The Berlin wall was built to end the flow of East Germans into the West. The Wall was built and within hours, friends and family were divided by barbed wire and concrete. Fast forward to the Spring of 1987. Negotiations from the Reykjavik Summit in 1986 had stalled and Gorbachev noted after visiting the Berlin Wall….get this…. that “At the Brandenburg Gate, one can clearly see how much strength and true heroism the defense of the first socialist state on German soil requires against the attacks of the class enemy.” Aware of such language, President Reagan was ready to level stronger demands which would echo throughout the West, reverberate behind prison gates in the East and ignite a resolve to fight for freedom. By 1987, President Reagan was ready to take freedom on the offensive, into the heart of the disintegrating Soviet empire.

President Reagan believed in the goal of full employment for everyone through economic growth, not through government programs. Here are President Reagan's remarks at the Annual Convention of the United States League of Savings Associations in 1982.

If one thinks about Ronald Reagan’s signature causes, the things that come to mind are peace through strength, economic opportunity, individual liberty, and national pride. What many people have forgotten is his campaign for democracy – yes, a global campaign for democracy – which was launched 40 years ago on June 8, 1982. The setting for that speech? The British Parliament and the speech came to be known as his “Westminster Speech.” He became the first American President to deliver an address before British Parliament and stood in a grand and regal setting, speaking at the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords, with paintings of British military victories lining the walls and guards in their red beefeater uniforms standing behind him.