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Floor Speech - June 9, 2004 How One Man Remembers Reagan Mr. Speaker, A few years ago I had the privilege of visiting with Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident who is now an Israeli cabinet minister. I asked him what his reaction was, as he was in the Soviet Gulag at that time, to the ``Evil Empire'' speech. Here is his reaction as expressed in a recent quotation: "In 1983 I was confined to an 8 by 10 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 3 years later I would be in the White House telling the story to the President. When he summoned some of his staff to hear what I said, I understood that there had been much criticism of Reagan's decision to cast the struggle between superpowers as a battle between good and evil. Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong.'" There is no doubt that Natan Sharansky speaks for millions of people who today are free. A great President, with a great legacy, Ronald Wilson Reagan. |
