Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

“I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be ‘someone else’s’ problem.”

  Senator Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, who died in 1983, was a maverick: a liberal on domestic affairs, a hard-liner on defense and foreign affairs. He served as senator from Washington, and as a leader of the Democratic party, for three decades. A conservationist before such a person became known as an environmentalist, and a staunch supporter of Israel. Jackson was twice unsuccessful in the seventies in his bid to become the Democratic candidate for president. He was offered, and turned down, the defense portfolio by President Nixon.

  Jackson was not widely praised for his speechmaking; in fact, a 1976 barb about the delivery of the presidential candidate suggested, “If he gave a fireside chat, the fire would go out.” On a controversial issue like the handling of terrorism, however, the senator could speak forcefully and authoritatively.

  In July 1979, he was invited to address the Conference on International Terrorism, in Jerusalem. The meeting was sponsored by the Jonathan Institute, which was named for Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, remembered for his courage and death in the 1976 rescue of Israeli hostages at Entebbe.

  Among the effective rhetorical devices of his lecture is his tribute to the namesake of the Jonathan Institute with a parallel listing of adjectives (“strong, dedicated, courageous, dependable”). He enumerates five ways to combat terrorists and uses rhetorical questions to concentrate on the moral issue of conducting business with countries that promote or allow terrorism.

  ***

  AS WE GATHER here this evening, our thoughts turn to Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu. We recall the quality of his personal character, his inner devotion to the public good, his voluntary performance of the most demanding duties that the defense of democracy entails, and the sacrifice consummated in the heroic rescue at Entebbe. Jonathan’s heritage is an unpurchasable treasure of the spirit that moth and rust cannot consume nor thieves break through and steal.

  When, in George Bernard Shaw’s play, they tell Joan of Arc that they are going to burn her at the stake, she foresees the effect upon the people. “If I go through the fire,” she says, “I shall go through it to their hearts for ever and ever.” So Jonathan went through the Entebbe fire to our hearts for ever and ever.

  I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be “someone else’s” problem.

  If you believe as I do, then you must join me in wondering why the community of liberal democracies has not banded together more effectively to oppose these international murderers and to loudly and vigorously expose those states, which cynically provide terrorists with comfort and support. One of the great cover-ups of this century is the effort by Western governments, who know better, to muffle the facts about Soviet bloc support for international terrorism.

  I’m not talking about individual acts of madmen. I’m talking about highly organized groups with international connections and support who systematically rely on major acts of violence as a political instrument. I’m thinking of the Basque and Puerto Rican terrorists, the European terrorist groups, and the PLO attacks, or threats of attack, against moderate Arab states which might be motivated to support the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. I have in mind the PLO attacks against moderate Palestinians—the murder of a moderate leader in the Gaza is a recent brutal example. I am reminded of radical Palestinian terrorist attacks on airliners servicing Israel. I’m thinking of the Palestinian operations in Lebanon and the activities of Turkish terrorists. Such acts of terrorism are part of a broad campaign aimed at the disintegration of democratic societies through undermining the confidence of their citizenry in their governments.

  International terrorism is a special problem for democracies. To a totalitarian regime like the Soviet Union, it is mainly a nuisance. The government applies whatever force is needed to liquidate the group and its members; borders are closed to unwanted entry or exit; individual rights are held subservient to “law and order”; publicity can be denied by fiat. The biggest difference between the Soviet Union and such states as Libya, Iraq, and Iran is that these governments are not as efficient—yet.

  A democratic government, on the other hand, rests on the consent of the governed. It is responsible for assuring the democratic freedoms of speech, assembly, travel, press, and privacy. These conditions, obviously, facilitate terrorist operations, directed against a particular government or as the battleground for opposing terrorist groups. When the PLO and Iraqi terrorists were at war, they chose to fight it out in Europe, not in the Middle East.

  Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the international nature of the terrorism. Today’s terrorists have modern technology to help them, permitting rapid international communications, travel, and the transfer of monies; they can work with others of like mind across the international borders of the world’s free nations.

  More important, however, these groups receive extensive support from the Soviet bloc. Most terrorists use Soviet or East European weapons; they have been trained in the Warsaw Pact countries, or in such Middle East countries as South Yemen and the PLO-controlled areas of Lebanon; they generally flee for protection and rest to East Europe or to such countries as Libya. The primary supporters of international terrorism are the Soviet Union and those states which the Soviets support: the Warsaw Pact and the radical Arab camp.

  Modern terrorism is a form of “warfare by remote control” waged against free nations or against nondemocratic but moderate states which dare to sympathize with freedom. In this kind of war, the totalitarian regimes see little risk of retribution directed at them.

  What can be done?

  First, and foremost, liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a “collective problem.” Everything else follows from this. When one free nation is under attack, the rest must understand that democracy itself is under attack, and behave accordingly. We must be allied in our defense against terrorists….

  Let me emphasize two propositions whose truth should be evident to all democracies. To insist that free nations negotiate with terrorist organizations can only strengthen the latter and weaken the former. To crown with statehood a movement based on terrorism would devastate the moral authority that rightly lies behind the effort of free states everywhere to combat terrorism.

  Secondly, every free nation must work against Soviet and radical state efforts to define away terrorism. The idea that one person’s “terrorist” is another’s “freedom fighter” cannot be sanctioned. Freedom fighters or revolutionaries don’t blow up buses containing noncombatants; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t set out to capture and slaughter schoolchildren; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t assassinate innocent businessmen or hijack and hold hostage innocent men, women, and children; terrorist murderers do. It is a disgrace that democracies would allow the treasured word “freedom” to be associated with the acts of the terrorists.

  Third, we must turn the publicity instrument against the terrorists, and we must expose Soviet and other state support of terrorist groups whenever we identify it. When PLO terrorists toss a bomb into a marketplace or murder a holy man or shoot rockets randomly at a village, each and every democracy in the world should stand up to condemn those radical Arab states and the Soviet Union who train, arm, finance, harbor, and encourage them.

  When an act of terrorism occurs, and the odds are it will occur in one of the free countries, democracies should unite in sponsoring resolutions in the United Nations condemning the act. Where we have evidence of support for the terrorists by some other state, this support should be censured in the strongest terms. If the Soviet Union, its allies, and the radical Arab and Third World stat
es want to vote against such resolutions, let them. Let’s educate the whole world as to who opposes and who tolerates international terrorism.

  I am convinced that this will make a difference; I am convinced, for instance, that the exposure of East European support for European terrorism has contributed to the lessening of this support and to the signs of some cooperation to combat terrorism between these countries and the nations of West Europe.

  Fourth, liberal democracies must work together to apply sanctions against countries which provide sanctuary to international terrorists. The Bonn Anti-Hijacking Agreement is a good start. It is ironic that the pilots and the airlines, and not our statesmen, provided the leadership which led to this agreement.

  We can do more. For instance, is it moral to trade openly and freely with states who use the profits from such trade to finance the murder of innocents? Why should those who conduct remote control warfare against us rest easy that we will contribute to financing our own destruction?

  Fifth, within each of our own countries, we must organize to combat terrorism in ways consistent with our democratic principles and with the strong support of our citizens. Israel has long done this. And the nations of Western Europe are moving in this direction. In my country, we are making some progress in organizing federal, state, and local agencies to deal more realistically with terrorist threats….

  Now this final word:

  In providing for her own defense against terrorism, Israeli courage has inspired those who love freedom around the world. The Entebbe rescue was a classic lesson for all free nations that terrorism can be effectively countered with strength, skill, and determination. These are qualities in short supply in many countries where freedom comes more easily. Indeed, the great need in the world today is for men and women who stand in the tradition of Jonathan Netanyahu—strong, dedicated, courageous, dependable.

  Presidential Aide Jack Valenti Recalls the Lessons Learned at the Center of Power

  “I learned never to humiliate an antagonist and never desert a friend…. I learned that… the politician who persistently lifts his wet finger to test the political polls before he acts usually leaves office with a wet finger.”

  A World War II combat hero from Texas, Jack Valenti founded an advertising agency in Houston in 1952 and became associated with the political campaigns of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Valenti was in charge of the press during the visit to Texas of President Kennedy and Vice-President Johnson on November 22, 1963; when the president was assassinated in the Dallas motorcade, Valenti accompanied the new president to Washington in Air Force One, the first special assistant named by President Johnson.

  In later years, as Johnson was vilified by the Left for the war in Vietnam and by the Right for his Great Society, Valenti remained outspokenly loyal to his old chief, often the only voice that could be found for a spirited defense of LBJ’s record and reputation. An articulate and forceful speaker, the diminutive Democrat—who left the White House to become president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America—wrote the best book about speechmaking, Speak Up with Confidence. He is a founder-member of the Judson Welliver Society, the association of White House speechwriters.

  In this speech to the Federal Communications Bar Association, made in Washington on January 31, 1996, thirty years after becoming the movie industry’s voice, Valenti reflected on the lessons learned in a career in or near the center of power.

  The talk opens with the briefest of references to the dramatic moment he came to Washington, which was just enough; it moves to a series of paragraphs beginning “I learned that,” giving the address a disciplined structure; and it concludes with a dramatic anecdote illustrating his major “lesson.” Needless to say, the well-crafted speech by the Harvard-educated political pro was flawlessly delivered in a modified Texas accent.

  ***

  …I WOULD LIKE to talk tonight about what I have learned since I arrived in the Federal City aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963…. I learned that in the White House there is one enduring standard by which every assistant to the president, every presidential adviser, every presidential consultant, must inevitably be measured. Not whether you went to Harvard or Yale, or whether you scored sixteen hundred on your SATs, or whether you are endlessly charming and charismatically enabled, or whether you made millions in what we sardonically call “the private sector.” These are all attractive credentials, which one may wear modestly or otherwise. But when the decision crunch is on in the Oval Office they are all merely tracings on dry leaves in the wind. What does count, the ultimate and only gauge, is whether you have “good Judgment.”

  I learned that no presidential decision is ever made where the president had all the information he needed to make the decision. There is never enough facts. Very quickly, the decision corridor grows dark, the mapping indistinct, the exit inaccessible. What is not useful are precedents or learned disquisitions by op-ed page pundits, some of whom would be better suited to raising pigeons….

  It is well to remember, as Oscar Wilde once said, that from time to time nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Judgment is something that springs from some little elf who inhabits an area between your belly and your brain, and who, from time to time, tugs at your nerve edges, and says, “No, not that way, the other way.”…

  I learned that the one political component above all else which can ensure electoral victory or crushing defeat is timing. A whack to your political solar plexus six to eight months before an election is survivable. Two weeks before the election, and you’re dead. Ask Jimmy Carter. In politics, twenty hours is a millennium.

  I learned that economic forecasts beyond about two weeks have the same odds of accuracy as guessing the winning numbers in the D.C. lottery….

  Economic forecasts are usually unwarranted assumptions leaping to a preconceived conclusion. Just remember, whenever an economist can’t remember his phone number, he will give you an estimate.

  I learned that when there is no unamiable issue like war, or prospect of war, or recession, or economic disaster, most people vote for a president viscerally, not intellectually. Most people choose a president romantically, a choice made in unfathomable ways, which is how romance is formed. Like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

  I learned never to humiliate an antagonist and never desert a friend. In a political struggle, never get personal else the dagger digs too deep. Your enemy today may need to be your ally tomorrow.

  I learned that nothing lasts. What is up will inevitably go down and sooner or later in reverse. It took forty years, but the House changed masters. Victory is often the prelude to defeat. President Bush can rise to testify about that. Failure is often the precursor of triumph. Ask Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon tasted both ends of those beguiling equations. The breeding ground of politics is irrigated and nourished by change. As one who has fallen from political power, I can instruct George Stephanopoulos in how quickly you lose your charm and your enticements when you no longer sit at the right hand of the Sun King.

  I learned that a political poll is Janus in disguise. The life of a poll is about ten nanoseconds. It is already in decay when it is published. A political poll, like the picture of Dorian Gray, is the face of entropy. The veteran professionals know that. The old pols use polls to raise money. When polls are up, go for the fat wallets. But the politician who persistently lifts his wet finger to test the political polls before he acts usually leaves office with a wet finger….

  But the greatest lesson I have learned, the most important of my education, is really the essential imperative of this century. It is called leadership. We brandish the word. We admire its light. But we seldom define it. Outside Caen in the Normandy countryside of France is a little cemetery. Atop one of the graves is a cross on which is etched these words: “Leadership is wisdom and courage and a great carelessness of self.” Which means, of course, that leaders must from time to time put to hazard their own political future in order to do what is right in the long-t
erm interests of those they have by solemn oath sworn to serve. Easy to say. Tough to do.

  I remember when I first bore personal witness to its doing. It was in December 1963. Lyndon Johnson had been president but a few short weeks. At that time I was actually living on the third floor of the White House until my family arrived. The president said to me on a Sunday morning, “Call Dick Russell and ask him if he would come by for coffee with you and me.”

  Senator Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia was the single most influential and honored figure in the Senate. His prestige towered over all others in those years before the dialogue turned sour and mean. When in 1952, the Senate Democratic leader’s post fell open, the other senators turned immediately to Russell, imploring him to take the job. “No,” said Russell, “let’s make Lyndon Johnson our leader, he’ll do just fine.” So at the age of forty-four, just four years in his first Senate term, LBJ became the youngest ever Democratic leader and in a short time the greatest parliamentary commander in Senate history.

  When Russell arrived, the president greeted him warmly with a strong embrace, the six-foot-four LBJ and the smallish, compact Russell, with his gleaming bald head and penetrating eyes. The president steered him to the couch overlooking the Rose Garden in the West Hall on the second floor of the mansion. I sat next to Russell. The president was in his wing chair, his knees almost touching Russell’s, so close did they sit.

  The president drew even closer, and said in an even voice, “Dick, I love you and I owe you. If it had not been for you I would not have been leader, or vice-president, or now president. But I wanted to tell you face to face, please don’t get in my way on this civil rights bill, which has been locked up in the Senate too damn long. I intend to pass this bill, Dick. I will not cavil. I will not hesitate. And if you get in my way, I’ll run you down.”

  Russell sat mutely for a moment, impassive, his face a mask. Then he spoke, in the rolling accents of his Georgia countryside. “Well, Mr. President, you may just do that. But I pledge you that if you do, it will not only cost you the election, it will cost you the South forever.”