Mourning the Passing of President Ronald Reagan

MOURNING THE PASSING OF PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN -- (House of Representatives - June 09, 2004)

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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I first met Ronald Reagan over 40 years ago when I was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in California. He and I and some others were involved in a primary election campaign for a United States Senator from California which proved to be very unsuccessful. But in the meetings that I attended that Mr. Reagan chaired, I recognized him as being a unique person with an uncanny knack to bring out the best in everybody.

He certainly proved that during his subsequent career: two successful terms as Governor of California and two successful terms as President of the United States, leaving office with the highest approval rating of any departing President since Franklin Roosevelt.

Look at the shape America was in when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. We went through a horrible decade of the 1970s. There was a Vietnam War, there was Watergate, there was Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford's unsuccessful Whip Inflation Now campaign, Jimmy Carter's malaise, and long lines at the gas pump to buy 5 gallons of gas.

When President Reagan took office, he got us out of our national funk. His Morning in America speech and his philosophy gave us as a Nation and as individual Americans the self-confidence to do what America has always done; that is, to achieve the ultimate dream, to overcome the impossible, and to have each and every one of us reach our highest and best.

Much is said about Reagan turning around the economy and winning the Cold War, and some of the debate on the Cold War was about the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative, but there was a decision that Ronald Reagan made earlier that laid the groundwork for the collapse of communism. He persuaded then German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany. That was extremely controversial at the time both in Europe and the United States. People said putting more missiles would encourage an arms race.

Well, Mr. Schmidt agreed to deploy them. He might have lost his job as a result of it, but he was able to see the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany during his lifetime, and we have got to give credit to Ronald Reagan's international skills for doing that.

God bless you President Reagan, may you rest in peace.