Word to LIve by & Reagan Forum

Words To Live By – How to Handle the Russians

In November 2022, state department officials went to great lengths to prevent a meeting at the G20 summit between Biden and Putin. They knew that at some point, the two leaders would cross paths, but US officials ruled out a formal meeting and took steps to ensure that the American president does not encounter his Russian counterpart in a hallway or even in a group photo. Why? Well, the answer is that President Biden thinks Putin is a killer, a war criminal and, you don’t usually meet with killers and war criminals. Both of Biden’s immediate predecessors — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — crafted foreign policies that involved direct engagement with traditionally adversarial leaders; Obama as a matter of bridging difficult diplomatic divides, Trump as part creating personal and political alliances. Biden has had less engagement abroad. And today, Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine is TIME’s man of the year and awarded such an honor for standing up to the Soviet Union. With that in mind…just how did Ronald Reagan handle those pesky Russians?

A Reagan Forum – Christmas

As we sit between Christmas and New Year’s, we take time to reflect on the year past and the year ahead. From all of us at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, we wish you and your family the happiest and healthiest of holiday seasons. In this week’s A Reagan Forum Podcast, we’re going to go listen to some of our “Best Of Ronald Reagan” podcasts to help keep you in the holiday spirit. We’re going to start with the best of his remarks around holidays.

Words To Live By – New Year’s Day

On January 1, 1985, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev addressed each other’s people in an unprecedented exchange of televised New Year’s greetings. Remember that in March 1985, Gorbachev came into office, after the death of former Soviet leader Chernenko and after his very long illness. Knowing the voracity of the Cold War makes this exchange even more meaningful. The four major American networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN carried the leaders five minute speeches at 1pm EST. Even more remarkable, Soviet television agreed to broadcast Reagan’s message to the Soviet people simultaneously, or at 9pm Moscow time: prime time in the Soviet Union.

A Reagan Forum – Peter Thiel

In this week’s Reagan Forum podcast, we go 1 ½ weeks to December 13, 2022 for our in-person event with Peter Thiel who was a speaker in the Reagan Foundation’s Time for Choosing Speaker Series, a forum for leading voices in the conservative movement. Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor. He cofounded PayPal, led it as CEO, and took it public; he made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he serves as a director; and he cofounded Palantir Technologies, where he serves as chairman. He is a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded companies including SpaceX and Airbnb. During his Time for Choosing Speech at the Reagan Library, Peter Thiel addressed additional critical issues facing the future of the Republican Party.

Words To Live By – Eight Years of Christmas

President Reagan, a man of devout faith, loved Christmas deeply. And he chose to share his feelings about the holiday in many different ways over his eight years in office. So today in our podcast, rather than focusing on one single address or message, we’ll take an overview of the President’s eight years in office to look at eight mighty ways to express his joy during the holiday season.

A Reagan Forum – Lloyd Austin

In 2022, we were reminded of the fragility of peace. As we continue to follow the tragic events in Ukraine and keep our eye on a tenuous peace in the Indo-Pacific, Americans must remember the resolve and moral clarity of President Reagan, who explained, “We stand against totalitarianism, particularly imperialistic expansionist totalitarianism. We are for democracy and human rights.” During this year’s Reagan National Defense Forum our panels addressed how to rebuild and maintain the peace, and how we would do well to remember that a strong U.S. military is the best guarantor for that peace—and for freedom. Just like last year, this year’s Defense Forum’s keynote address was delivered by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Lloyd Austin.

Words To Live By – The MX Peacekeeper Missile

In November 1981, President Reagan delivered what he considered to be the most important foreign policy speech of his administration. Before the members of the National Press Club, he called for a number of things: the elimination of all intermediate range nuclear force weapons – known as the zero zero option – and, he called for a meeting with the Soviet Union (then Brezhnev) to negotiate new reductions in their mutual stockpiles of long range strategic nuclear weapons. But just weeks before this speech he had given final approval to blueprints for a multibillion dollar modernization of our strategic forces to build 100 B-1B bombers to replace our deteriorating fleet of B-52 bombers, to deploy new trident nuclear submarines, to develop the stealth bomber, and to build 100 new intercontinental range missiles known as…the MX Peacekeeper.

A Reagan Forum – Auschwitz Train Car Installation

President Reagan once said, “We of today must choose how we will respond to the Holocaust. Let us tell the world that we will struggle against the darker side of human nature; that with God's help, goodness will prevail and those who lost their lives will not be forgotten.” Here, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, we’re working to ensure that their lives won’t be forgotten. Just one month ago we held an event to announce our upcoming exhibition, Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away. During this program we heard the moving testimony of two Auschwitz survivors, as well as received the first artifact that is a part of this extraordinary exhibition – a German WWII Train Car – the type used during the Holocaust to transport goods – and people – to Auschwitz. This very touching program began with the arrival of that train car – which was led by a procession of combat veterans on motorcycles.

Words To Live By – Kennedy Center Honors

Every December, Americans celebrate their memorable cultural icons when the Kennedy Center bestows its annual honors to those in the performing arts for their lifetime contributions. Since 1978, the Honors have been presented annually each December to five honorees followed by a gala celebration. The original strategy was that these unique individuals were people who have contributed to society, not someone who happens to have a pop record hit at the moment. The intention was not to do just another award show. Do you recall the first host? It was Leonard Bernstein in 1978. And the White House got involved by inviting the Honorees first to the White House for an initial presentation by the President. For 2022, who are the Honorees? Well, George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, Tania Leon and U2. In this podcast, we’ll focus on two ceremonies held at the White House. The first, 40 years ago in 1982 honored George Abbott, Eugene Ormandy, Lillian Gish, Benny Goodman, and Gene Kelly. Then, in the second half of the podcast, the President honored in 1984, Lena Horne, Arthur Miller, Gian Carlo Menotti, Isaac Stern and Danny Kaye. And in the second half of the podcast, I’ll share a bit about those who were offered the honor but declined.

A Reagan Forum – Gordon Sondland

In this week’s Reagan Forum podcast we go back one month to November 10, 2022 for our in-person event with former Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland for his new book, The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World. In 2018, Gordon Sondland, the Founder and CEO of Provenance Hotels, was appointed to serve as the 20th U.S. Ambassador to the European Union by President Donald Trump. He was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate in June 2018 and served as Ambassador to the E.U. until February 2020. As Ambassador, Gordon Sondland was one of the highest-ranking U.S. officials in Europe and his portfolio included trade, energy, national security, defense, agriculture and several other files.