Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
In addition to the INF treaty, we're within reach of an even more
significant START agreement that will reduce U.S. and Soviet long-range
missile--or strategic arsenals by half. But let me be clear. Our approach
is not to seek agreement for agreement's sake but to settle only for
agreements that truly enhance our national security and that of our allies.
We will never put our security at risk--or that of our allies--just to reach
an agreement with the Soviets. No agreement is better than a bad
agreement.
As I mentioned earlier, our efforts are to give future generations what we
never had--a future free of nuclear terror. Reduction of strategic
offensive arms is one step, SDI another. Our funding request for our
Strategic Defense Initiative is less than 2 percent of the total defense
budget. SDI funding is money wisely appropriated and money well spent. SDI
has the same purpose and supports the same goals of arms reduction. It
reduces the risk of war and the threat of nuclear weapons to all mankind.
Strategic defenses that threaten no one could offer the world a safer, more
stable basis for deterrence. We must also remember that SDI is our
insurance policy against a nuclear accident, a Chernobyl of the sky, or an
accidental launch or some madman who might come along.
We've seen such changes in the world in 7 years. As totalitarianism
struggles to avoid being overwhelmed by the forces of economic advance and
the aspiration for human freedom, it is the free nations that are resilient
and resurgent. As the global democratic revolution has put totalitarianism
on the defensive, we have left behind the days of retreat. America is again
a vigorous leader of the free world, a nation that acts decisively and
firmly in the furtherance of her principles and vital interests. No legacy
would make me more proud than leaving in place a bipartisan consensus for
the cause of world freedom, a consensus that prevents a paralysis of
American power from ever occurring again.
But my thoughts tonight go beyond this, and I hope you'll let me end this
evening with a personal reflection. You know, the world could never be
quite the same again after Jacob Shallus, a trustworthy and dependable
clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, took his pen and engrossed
those words about representative government in the preamble of our
Constitution. And in a quiet but final way, the course of human events was
forever altered when, on a ridge overlooking the Emmitsburg Pike in an
obscure Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg, Lincoln spoke of our duty to
government of and by the people and never letting it perish from the
Earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account