Ronald Reagan Speech Analysis

Words: 1350
Pages: 6

Ronald Wilson Reagan, February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004 was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States of America from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, following a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan) Reagan also served in the U.S. Army during World War Two achieving the rank of Lieutenant But due to his eyesight he was stationed stateside, creating training films. On June 6th, 1984 he gave one of his greatest speeches. Standing on the northern coast of France where Allied soldiers had went ashore to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny, President Ronald Reagan spoke to an audience …show more content…
“ not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came.”. ( http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-d-day.htm )He seamlessly shifts from the accounts of World War two to that of the modern day Cold War with the Soviet Union. Addressing peace through reconciliation instead of war. Standing firm with the explanation that we as a country have learned bitter lessons in striving for peace. “We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.” ( http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-d-day.htm ) Adding the losses of life suffered by the Russian people during the war totaling twenty million. Evidence that a future without peace is only tyranny and the human cost of war is unfathomable. What talents were lost in those massive numbers? Was the price worth the outcome? He gave a heartfelt plea, stating that the United States does not want war but peace. Offering a hand to Russia to reconcile and move forward to a peaceful end to the Cold War. (The Cold War period of 1985–1991 began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was a revolutionary leader for the USSR, as he was the first to promote liberalization of the political landscape and capitalization elements into the economy, prior to this, the USSR had been strictly prohibiting liberal reform and maintained an inefficient centralized economy. The USSR, facing massive economic difficulties, was also greatly interested in reducing the costly arms race with the U.S. President Ronald