WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 06/06/2004 3:55:13 PM PDT by Alouette
In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.
At the time, I never imagined that three years later, I would be in the White House telling this story to the president. When he summoned some of his staff to hear what I had said, I understood that there had been much criticism of Reagan's decision to cast the struggle between the superpowers as a battle between good and evil. Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong.
Those same critics used to love calling Reagan a simpleton who saw the world through a primitive ideological prism and who would convey his ideas through jokes and anecdotes. In our first meeting, he told me that Soviet premier Brezhnev and Kosygin, his second-in-command, were discussing whether they should allow freedom of emigration. "Look, America's really pressuring us," Brezhnev said, "maybe we should just open up the gates. The problem is, we might be the only two people who wouldn't leave." To which Kosygin replied, "Speak for yourself."
What his critics didn't seem to understand was that the jokes and anecdotes that so endeared Reagan to people were merely his way of expressing fundamental truths in a way that everyone could understand.
Reagan's tendency to confuse names and dates, something I, too, experienced first-hand, also made him the target of ridicule. In September 1987, a few months before a summit meeting with Gorbachev in Washington, I met with Reagan to ask him what he thought about the idea of holding a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of people on behalf of Soviet Jewry during the summit. Some Jewish leaders, concerned that if the rally were held Jews would be accused of undermining a renewed hope for peace between the superpowers, had expressed reservations about such a frontal challenge to the Soviet premier.
Seeing me together for the first time with my wife Avital, who had fought for many years for my release, Reagan greeted us like a proud grandparent, knowing he had played an important role in securing my freedom. He told us about his commitment to Soviet Jewry. "My dear Mr. and Mrs. Shevardnadze," he said, "I just spoke with Soviet Foreign Minister Sharansky, and I said you better let those Jews go."
Not wanting to embarrass the president over his mistake, I quickly asked him about the rally, outlining the concerns raised by some of my colleagues. His response was immediate: "Do you think I am interested in a friendship with the Soviets if they continue to keep their people in prison? You do what you believe is right."
Reagan may have confused names and dates, but his moral compass was always good. Today's leaders, in contrast, may know their facts and figures, but are often woefully confused about what should be the simplest distinctions between freedom and tyranny, democrats and terrorists.
The legacy of president Reagan will surely endure. Armed with moral clarity, a deep faith in freedom, and the courage to follow his convictions, he was instrumental in helping the West win the Cold War and hundreds of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain win their freedom.
As one of those people, I can only express my deepest gratitude to this great leader. Believe me, I will take moral clarity and Shevardnadze any day.
The writer, a prisoner of Zion for nine years, is currently minister-without-portfolio in charge of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
A truth that was instantly understood by prisoners of the Soviet gulag but that to this day is not understood by most of our primped and pampered media.
Interesting article. Andrea Mitchell felt compelled today to mention that Reagan sometimes confused his facts. This author is spot-on about the difference between being correct with every single fact or name you state and being correct about right and wrong.
Prairie
Perhaps we could throw the media in a 8 x 10 foot prison cell under hostile dictatorships for several months and see if their understanding improves. Somehow I think it might.....
Prairie
Little did Sharansky know that the america hating, communist loving media right here in the United States criticized President Reagan for daring to call the Soviet's what they were.......EVIL.
Maybe, but although such treatment is said to focus the mind, their minds may be too underdeveloped to notice.
bump
bump.
Albert Gore Jr. - Knows facts and figures.
G.W.Bush - Knows right and wrong, freedom and tyranny.
LOL, this is a eulogy that President Reagan would have loved.
later
Thanks for the ping. The very first vote I ever cast was for Ronald Reagan in my state's Republican presidential primary in 1976. Though I must confess that in the same primary four years later I voted for Phil Crane! I voted for him (Reagan) in both generals, though!
Great article.
I remember a gentleman named Anatoly Sharansky, and think that Natan is his nickname?
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A dramatic example of Soviet persecution of Jews was Anatoly Sharansky. In 1977, Sharansky was abducted by the KGB outside his apartment on Gorky Street and charged with espionage and treason — crimes punishable by death. He spent nine years in Lefortovo Prison, where he symbolized Reagan’s description of the “religious dissident trapped in that cold, cruel existence.” Sharansky later said of his interrogators: “They wanted to use me to destroy Jews who hoped to leave for Israel.”
In prison, Sharansky befriended Volodia Poresh, a Christian. The two secretly started each day with a Bible study, reading both the Old and New Testaments. They called these sessions “Reaganite readings.” Reagan had declared a “Year of the Bible,” a designation dismissed as childish by the Kremlin and some Western elites. Sharansky and Poresh — Jewish and Christian brothers — quite disagreed: they gained strength from that Bible in coping with the “evil” (Sharansky’s word) they faced.
Eventually, Sharansky was freed. In January 1989 he met President Reagan, who awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal. Sharansky told Reagan that if he ever had any “sad moments” once he left the presidency, he should think about Sharansky’s “happy family” and the thousands praying in Soviet camps. He thanked Reagan for Soviet citizens who were “free today not because of some good will of Soviet leaders but because of their struggle and your struggle.”
Today, Sharansky, who goes by the first name Natan, is a prominent player in Israeli politics and a leader among Russian Jews seeking their biblical homeland.
Ronald Reagan’s respect for Jews was ingrained in his upbringing and his faith. He drew upon Christian motivations in interceding to help Jews whenever he could. Anyone who thinks that a Christian who rejoices over Easter cannot reach out to Jews ought to contemplate Reagan’s example. Jesus Christ said that He came for all people — Jew and Gentile alike; it was a message Ronald Reagan took to heart.
And take it you idiots praising the cockroaches Sinkmaster, Lifeguard and Peanut Farmer for their insincere, cliche filled, boilerplate eulogies scribled by their taxpayer paid polscience graduate flunkies!
"You can know a man by his friends but you'll know him better by his enemies"
bttt
Thanks Natan. What an extraordinary tribute to an extraordinary man who cared til every one behind the Iron Curtain was free. And its thanks to his effort there is no longer an evil empire to threaten the freedom and peace of the Free World. Rest in peace, Mr. President. Its your reward for a job well done and a wonderful life well lived.
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