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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Blackwell, Morton: Files
Folder Title: Conservative Political Action Conference
(1 of 2)
Box: 5
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
REAGAN At Mid-Term: AN ASSESSMENT
Moderator: Alan Ryskind
1983 Conservative Political Action Conference
As you know, this is going to be an assessment of the Reagan administra-
tion after two years and we have a pretty well balanced panel, I think.
We have Bill Rusher who tends to be somewhat optimistic, I think, about
President Reagan, and we have Stan Evans who probably is a little more
pessimistic. Then, we have Lyn Nofziger who, I'd say is evenhanded. I
mean he's very evenhanded. Last year, for instance, in August on one day
he came out and he was attacking the hell out of the President's tax
hike. That night he emerged from the Oval Office and he was leading the
charge the other way for the tax hike. So, he can see things from both
sides. Very good! Anyway, he's the first person I think I will intro-
duce so he can come back at me and he's a sort of a jolly fellow. We
consider him, he's accustomed to wearing Mickey Mouse ties, and he's
addicted to atrocious puns which he will probably exhibit before you today.
He was a hard hitting Washington newsman; he worked for the Copley news-
papers; he quit, then, to join Reagan in 1966 and help him win the gover-
norship, and he's been with President Reagan and Governor Reagan off and
on since 1966. He served in the Nixon administration in various capaci-
ties and he came back here in 1981 to become head of Political Affairs
for President Reagan and he did a bang up job trying to get conservatives
into the White House and he had to go through that barrier which was in
front of him who is known as the Chief of Staff. And, he did a very good
job in spite of that obstacle. So, we ought to remember when the President
was shot in March of 1981 that it was not Alexander Haig who really com-
forted us when he came to the television and talked about how he was in
charge. It was really Lyn Nofziger who comforted all of us. So, I pre-
sent to you now Lyn Nofzier.
Well, it's certainly nice to get a hand at the beginning 'cause I expect
some boos somewhere along the line. As a matter of fact, if they had
some boosfup here, I'd probably do better! But, in any event, they've got
a lousy light up here so I'm going to have to put on my glasses so I can
see what I'm supposed to say, which, probably I don't need. Let me try it
without them. I'm much more handsome without my glasses on! And God,
that's damning with faint praise, I know. Anyway, I think that any fair
Page 2
assessment of the first two years of the Reagan administration has to
admit that the results have been mixed. (This is cream and I don't want
to step on it I don't know what the hell it's doing there). Last time
I looked Stan Evans' purse was there! But, in any event, I stalled here
for 2 minutes which gives me eight more minutes. So, let me say in all
fairness the President has not been a total success and I think that any-
body who expects that he would have been a total success is unrealistic,
doesn't understand how our system works, doesn't understand that the
President of the United States, even Ronald Reagan, does not have a magic
wand which he can wave and get things done. I think that basically a lot
of our people forget that our system of government is based on compromise
and that it's not enough to send up legislation to the Hill. You've also
got to get the House to agree on it which, as you know, is controlled by
Democrats, get the Senate to agree on it which, as you know, is sometimes
controlled by liberal Republicans, and then get those two to agree on it
and then come up with some sort of an agreement that they can accept and
that the President can accept. So, you cannot get all you want every
time you send something to the Hill and sometimes you don't get anything
you want. And, I think too many of our people fail to take that into
consideration. Secondly, when you get into the area of appointments, etc.,
our people say, well, Ronald Reagan should have appointed every conserva-
tive in the country. I wish he could have. More importantly, I wish
he would have fired many more Democrats than they did fire! And, I want
it known that I offered several times to take on that task
and was
turned down by those at the White House who didn't want to create the
kind of problems or ruckuses that that would have created. But, when you
come to appointments, it's very well to say well just go out and appoint
conservatives, but tradition and custom and once again the facts of
political life dictate that you have to deal with Senators and Represen-
tatives and party leaders in making those appointments. And, so what are
you going to do? If a John Tower, for instance, wants somebody for polit-
ical reasons and I'm not picking on John Tower, 'cause he's an outstanding
man, but if he wants somebody who we don't think should be there, well,
you probably compromise and give it to him
because you're going to
need his vote somewhere down the line on something else or you're going
to need his help in getting another appointment through
and that sort
of thing. What are you going to do with a Chuck Percy? I know what I'd
like
But, you know, Chuck Percy has given the President many more
votes than I think most of us expected he would. He is a Chairman of a
Page 3
major Committee as is Bob Packwood, a chairman of a committee. You've got
to deal with those people. And, in dealing with them you compromise here
and you compromise there. Otherwise, you don't get anything done. So, I
think as we assess this we must face the reality of our political system
as it was written by the founding fathers and as it has emerged and
changed over the years. Ok
where do I believe that Ronald Reagan has
not been a success? Well, I think one place where this
he needs to do
a lot of work in the next year if he's going to be re-elected is in the
area of holding together the coalition that sent him here and once again,
there are not enough of us conservatives, there are not enough Reaganites
who have been there all along, to elect Ronald Reagan president even
against Jimmy Carter. It took a coalition to do it. And, it took a coali-
tion of blue collar workers and union people, Catholics, the moral majority
types, and I say moral majority with a couple of small "m's"; it took
Hispanics, it took Jews and it took a very small segment of our black
population because we only got about 8% of that vote. But, nevertheless,
you had to put that all together if you were going to send Ronald Reagan
to the White HOuse. I think because the President has been so wrapped up
in the economy in trying to get inflation under control, trying to hold
down the growth of government and so forth, that they have really not paid
enough attention to those people who sent him there. Now, unfortunately,
all those people are not basically conservatives. Many of us are not going
to agree with what the union people want, many of us are not going to agree
totally with where r the Hispanics or the Jews or even the moral majority
types are coming from because all our own ranks consist not only of people
who are basically conservative but they also consist of many people who
tend toward libertarianism and so there are going to be some differences
in our own ranks. So, there have been failures there in doing the things
that these various segments of our voting population wanted him to do.
There have been failures in appointing proper numbers of them to jobs and
so forth and so on. I think even more importantly the White House has done
a lousy job of telling the country what it is doing, telling the country
what it has done, and even telling the country what ought to be done and
why/ought it to be done. For instance, we have done not a good job of selling
the country on the need to rebuild our defenses and on the validity of the
size of the defense budgets. I think we've done not a good job in protecting
this President and in cheering for him when he's done the right things and
in going out and attacking his political enemies. I think because of that
there has been a feeling in this country that there is a lack of concern
Page 4
in the White House. There's a kind of a callousness about people who are
out of jobs, about what happens to individuals. It seems that we have
been so interested in doing a job for the whole country that we sometimes
forget that the country is made up of individuals and that we have to be
concerned about individuals as well as well as about the people. So, I
think this is where there has been a significant failure in this adminis-
tration. But, you know, let's turn away from that and get to the
successes because there have been many successes in this administration.
True, the President has not rolled back fifty years of steadily advancing
"statism" in his first two years; and he has not yet rebuilt 15 years of
declining national defenses. But, look, he has made a good start. Where-
ever you look in this government, every department you may say, ok the
Secretary is not a conservative and there are liberals here and there are
liberals there. But wherever you look in this government there are many
more conservatives in key places than there were, certainly, four years
ago and that there were really during the days of the Nixon--Ford adminis-
trations. You know, you can look at Interior, you can look at Energy;
there is a good pocket of conservatives in Education; there are even some
conservatives and I can point them out to you, except I might hurt their
chances of keeping their jobs!! There are some conservatives in the State
Department!!! There are a lot of conservatives over in USIA and you can
always tell when there are a batch of conservatives in one of our depart-
ments because then you begin to read in the papers and hear from the
liberal groups that we're ruining things and we're politicizing things
and so forth. And, I say you bet your life we're politicizing and we're
trying to turn this thing around and that's what this country is all about.
This is a political system!! And we sat and we watched Democrats politicize
it for years and when Republicans get in too often they're afraid to do
that 'cause they're afraid somebody is going to get mad at us. And, you
know, the point here on the good side where even The Washington Post, and
you may have heard of that, their objective great newspaper, in the nation's
capitol, even The Washington Post admitted that this administration has
done more to get a hold of the top ranks of the federal bureaueracy than
any administration in recent years. Don Devine, one of our really good
conservatives, is getting a hold of that, is beginning to turn it around.
He hasn't done it in two years either, but he has made progress. In the
matter of appointing judges, so important to what happens in this country,
not this year and not next year, but over a period of years; Congressional
Quarterly admits that the Reagan administration has made major strides in
Page 5
appointing judges who represent President Reagan's point of view. So,
there has been progress in those areas. And, certainly when you come
down to the economy, nobody can deny that we have made major progress
in the area of inflation. And, you know if you want to talk about what
has Ronald Reagan done for the poor and the people on fixed incomes, I'll
tell you what he's done: he's made their buck worth something again.
And that is more than any entitlement program up there that has come out
of the Congress in recent years has done. So, and he has, by standing
firm, he has been a major factor in bringing interest rates down. And,
hell you know, there's one bank here, I was listening to the radio on
the way in is now offering automobile loans not for the 11.9% that the
automobile company's are offering, but 11%. So, there are pressures
continuing to bring those rates down. Now, I think that is because this
President has stood fast on things. There has been a net cut in taxes.
Now, I know people will say well if you look at the whole thing such as
the increase in Social Security taxes there has not been, but Ronald
Reagan did not give you those increases in Social Security taxes. Those
were put in effect by the prior administration. You would have had those
whether or not taxes had been cut or had been raised, so yes, taxes have
been cut, the President has stood firm against tremendous pressures (you
tell me when my 10 minutes are up and then I'll quit); on that 3rd year
of the tax cuts; he has stood firm against tremendous pressures to get
rid of the indexing that will go into effect after the 3rd year of the
taxes. So, he has made progress there; he has not made progress in bal-
ancing the budget; that's very clear and he is not going to until the
economy begins moving again and already it has begun and I've talked to
economist after economist; I really don't have much use for most
economists unless they tell me what I'd like to hear!! You know, they
say if you took all the economists in Washington and laid 'em end to end
it'd be a good thing! But, in any event, many, many economists are saying
hey, we are going to get a boom here that is much better than any body was
predicting a few months ago and much better than a super cautious White
House was predicting even at the first of the year. My ten minutes is
up; OK
So, just let me say very quickly, yeh, there has been progress
made, there's been progress made in defense. We are heading again toward
a 600 ship Navy. It was down to 400 ships when Ronald Reagan came in. We
have got an Army and Marine Corps which once again has got some pride in
itself. Talk to the people who are in the Marines and they are so happy
they don't know what to do about what has happened under this administra-
Page 6
tion. There is much to be done. There is much to be done in the social
areas but I tell you, the President can stand and call for that stuff;
it's still going to take a Congress to act and in many cases it going to
take the states to act because it going to take constitutional amendments.
I am confident that when the economy is under control again, then the
President will begin to direct his strong efforts to that. But listen,
when people
when the economy is bad then that is the thing you have to
take care of first. That's what he's aimed at; my suggestion is that the
next 2 years is going to get better and in the next 6 years everybody will
be able to see a remarkable change as we have moved again toward a govern-
ment of individuals and toward individual rights and toward getting the
federal government off our backs and its hands out of our pockets. Thank
you very much
Thank you, Lyn
The next person I'm going to introduce is William
Rusher. I think most of you know him. He was a Captain
he's got a
distinguished career; he was a Captain in the Air Force, he's a Princeton
graduate, Harvard Law graduate, Wall Street lawyer; he was an associate
counsel in the U. S. Senate Internal Securities Sub-Committee when that
sub-committee was in existence and was doing what we thought were pretty
good things at the time. He's an author, lecturer, world traveler and,
of course, he's publisher of National Review. I present you William
Rusher.
Thank you Alan. When you see the assignments up here I'm to be optimistic,
Stan is to be pessimistic and I think you will agree with me that Lyn
has just done a fine job of being what might be called just plain mystic!!
This is going to be an historic occasion in another way because if there
is any day light at all between my position and Stan Evans' and I guess
there may be a little, we'll have to fake it if nothing else, it'll be the
first time!! I've long said that if I'm/accidentally ever crushed beneath
the wheels of a truck or something and anybody wonders afterwards what
Rusher would have thought about something, had he been alive today, ask
Stan Evans and he'll tell you because we agreed on everything!!! Now this
time we may have our differences. I find that there is always in any
large gathering of conservatives like this at least a small group of
or individual or two who want it proven that they are the most conserva-
tive person in the room! And nobody to the right of me, that kind of
Page 7
macho conservatism that loves to measure itself against the weaklings up
there speaking. Let me say that I've never regarded that as a particu-
larly profitable attitude that anybody wants to claim or establish, that
they're to the right of me; it can be done, it has been done. I am a
conservative because and to the extent that I think it's good for this
country and I think it's awfully good for this country. But, as I say,
somebody can turn my right flank and if anybody wants to try this morning,
they're welcome to. I am optimistic, very optimistic about Ronald
Reagan. A good many of you cannot remember, well even our last Republican
president, let alone the one before that; I can remember them both!! And,
I'll tell you the modern conservative movement in this country started
because up until 1952 we were under the illusion that if we could just
elect a Republican president everything would just naturally follow. It
turned out not to be the case at all; by two to 3 years into the
Eisenhower administration we had an independent, conservative political
movement in this country because we patently needed one. He did, absolutely,
well, I won't say absolutely nothing; he did some things, but certainly
nothing like what conservatives were entitled to expect from their
president. He now, as we know, moves into that period when he looks like
the golden age and I repeat, in some respects I think he was. His policies
were good; in others, they were not nearly so good, and that's why con-
servatism, the modern type, was born. Richard Nixon, appointed as nearly
as I can recall, two conservatives in his administration; Pat Buchanan
and Tom Houston, the former chairman of YAFF; were you in it? Off and
on
well, make it three. I was trying to cover up for you!! And, I'll
I'll tell you this, I love Pat Buchanan like a brother, but I remember
when he was up in the White House ten and 15 years ago telling us con-
servatives at meetings like this one to count our blessings and I much
prefer the Buchanan who likes to put the heat on occasionally and say we
want more!! Richard Nixon did such a job that a very great man recently
dead, John Ashbrook, chose to run against him in the early primaries of
1972, simply because serious conservatives had had it right up to roughly
here with Richard Nixon!! And, now we are invited to be dissatisfied,
forsooth!
with Ronald Reagan. Let me tell you something; in politics,
the battle, the issue, is not almost never shall we do the left thing or
the right thing, or the right thing or the wrong thing; the issue is where
is the battle field? Because it's always a shifting business; where is
the battle field; and if you will notice one of the really great things
Page 8
Ronald Reagan has done, is shift the battle field. We are now arguing not
whether taxes shall be cut, but how much taxes shall be cut. We are not
arguing how much whether domestic expenditures shall be cut, but how much
domestic expenditures shall be cut. We are not arguing whether defense
expenditures should be increased, but how much defense expenditures should
be increased. In all these areas, by shifting the battle field, he has
performed prodigies, one of his biggest contributions. The old Advocates,
television programs that I was on, some you may have seen, the station
which was naturally liberal, WGBH in Boston that did the production, had
a rule that every question had to be shall the government do thus and so?
How's that for stacking it? Of course, I got the negative most of the
time and I began winning so many of the votes that they commissioned a
man secretly to find out if the negative/some had special advantage!! I didn't
even find out about his memorandum until 2 years later! It didn't have
any special advantage; people were against the government doing all these
things. That was why. That was the battle field. Should the government
or should it not? Now, Reagan has shifted the battle field; one of his
biggest achievements. In the matter of appointments, he touched last
night on the biggest problem. Normally when you pick somebody for really
high government office cabinet level, you pick people who have had lower govern-
ment experience, sub-cabinet and so on, from previous administrations.
We didn't have any such people. Almost none. You had on the one hand all
of these people who had been in the Nixon, or god forbid, even the Carter ad-
ministration and claiming with endorsements you wouldn't believe that they
wanted jobs under Reagan and where were the conservatives? Well, they
were out there never having held public office and had an ear torn off
voting for fighting for Goldwater or something like that. And, that was
no credential by itself for government service. As the President said
last night, we now have the seasoned conservatives for the future. They
have been brought in and for the rest of your lifetime and mine there will
be a pool of conservatives with prior government service who future
presidents can draw on if they wish to. Another one of his biggest
achievements
I'm going fast because we have little time. In foreign
affairs; I've been quite close to the situation and the attitude to the
people in Taiwan. I have visited their country 17 times, most recently
last summer and I can tell you that regardless of what you may hear, or
even what they may say, because what they say is for public consumption, is
that they feel quite confident that they are getting what they need from
this administration and that they're going to continue to do so. The
Page 9
problem with Taiwan is not/the with attitude of this administration. The
problem is that in this country, under our system, no administration can
bind its successor. There's nothing Jimmy Carter could do that could keep
Reagan from changing and helping Taiwan if he wanted to; nothing Reagan
can do that/prevent can the next guy, if he's another Carter, from betraying.
But, therefore, you have to operate from administration to administration.
You can be absolutely certain that the Reagan administration will be, and
will continue to be, friendly to Taiwan and continue to give it precisely
everything it needs. In SoutherwAfrica, in southern Africa, that very
hotly packed and difficult area, you may have noticed a very interesting
shift. We're now discussing, everybody's discussing whether or not the
Cubans ought to leave as a pre-condition for South African withdrawal
from Namibia. Another question of shifting the battlefield. That was
simply introduced, rather late in the negotiating game and now insisted
upon by the United States. And, for a long time the front line countries
no will absolutely, never discuss such a thing, never, never, never!!!
But, Angola is discussing it. Angola is willing to make this a part of
the negotiating process; they won't call it a condition; they'll proceed
on parallel tracks. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Cubans will
have to get out of Angola before this administration consents to change
the situation in Namibia. In Central America, I notice that El Salvador
is still there and so are the guerillas, but they aren't shooting their
way into the government as the left would have them do; sit down and
negotiate cabinet posts with them and it's Nicaraugua that's complaining
that forces on its border are trying to destabilize it. You know where
there's that much smoke there just might conceivably be a smudge pot!
Somebody's working to worry the Nicarauguans; who do you suppose that is?!
It isn't Cyrus Vance, yes, Costa Rica , as you say
Has Ronald Reagan
weakened or lost his way? I don't think anybody who heard him last night
can think that he has become confused in the presidency. If, in point of
fact, he was letting us down as some critics contend, it would have to be
an out and out betrayal because the man who spoke last night was under no
illusions at all about what he wanted to do, about what the conservative
principles were, about what his policies with regard to them were
he
laid all that out for us. You didn't hear anything about, gosh, it's
different folks, when you're in the White House, you've got to understand
that. That wasn't what he said; that would be the signal that the man was
losing his way, and I don't believe for a moment that he is betraying us.
Page 10
I think that he is doing everything that humanly, from his position, can
be done. Conservative pressures, conservative pressures, repeat, can
help him. During the Nixon administration, I used to get a phone call
occasionaly from Tom Houston saying, if you folks at National Review
are annoyed at Nixon, say so, beat on him, raise a little hell; Laxalt
is doing it and I kept thinking/is well hé being disloyal to his boss? He was
Special Assistant to Mr. Nixon. No, no, he wasn't at all. I suspect he
was doing it at Nixon's request. Nixon was saying, in effect, let's have
a little percussion from the Right, please, to equal all that percussion
I'm getting from the left, and then I can march down the middle, you see.
I thought for a long time that there was actually a conspiracy between
Mr. Nixon and Mr. Reagan and some of his right wing critics, of that type.
I don't think so anymore, because conversations that I had with Pr esident
last year convinced me that he's been genuinely hurt by the tone of some
of the criticism he's gotten from the severe right. He spoke of one
particular attack
me as the most dishonest piece of journalism
he had ever seen. And, I'll tell you, when a man as inherently gentle as
Ronald Reagan uses terms like that, it's because he's been hurt. We do not to
ourselves or our country any service by hurting him. He's going, on my
opinion, to run again
and as I had the pleasure of saying to a panel
up at Harvard last week, he's going to mop up the floor with whatever
unfortunate soul the Democrats manage to persuade to run against him!! (applause)
And, the next time you and I have to watch out, is when that sad day comes,
and it will someday, when we have to let him go and pick another standard
bearer. I hope we remember, and above all/the that macho types remember it at
that point just how conservative they are. Because, I'll tell you, the
tendency of the Republican Party will be to inch back toward the center
and squat right there on that old traditional conservatism on which they
lost for so many years. Lyn is absolutely right, unless we can keep the
social conservatives with the economic conservatives, we are absolutely
through!! And, we're going to have to remember that! That's why the
social issues are so important; don't be dissappointed we didn't pass a
law through this session of Congress; things of that size and importance
you have to introduce again and again and slowly, as the liberals can tell
you, you get your way on them. But, these issues will
I remember in
1968, we'd had in '64 every conservative, at any rate, for Barry Goldwater.
All together, a wonderful, happy band; came 1968 and Goldwater wasn't
running, Reagan was running, at least he was available and a great many
conservatives were for him to the eternal credit of Young Americans for
Page 11
Freedom; their national board with 21 members, 19 of them there at Miami
Beach voted to endorse Ronald Reagan for the Presidency then. In 1968
when he was only 56 years old, but oh,
my friends, the former leading
Goldwaterites who, yea, they were for Reagan, but you know, Nixon 18 gotta
better chance; Nixon can win, he's conservative enough. I wouldn't have
to go far in this very room to find certain examples of that. What a
tragedy it was; what it gave this country, what a disaster! What a series
of disasters that was. Let's not make that mistake again. Let us
appreciate what we have, let us follow him and then let us give him a
successor worthy of what he will have done. He is a great president,
he is our leader, he is our winner and our children's children will bow
their heads at the mention of his name. Thank you very much.
I'm sure that Stan appreciate the fact that you've made his job so much
easier!! (He could always agree with me)
Anyway, M. Stanton Evans
is our next speaker. Most of you people here certainly know him. I'd
say he's probably the most active conservative around even though he's
a little older than I am, and he'd
he writesa syndicated column,
he does radio commentary, he lectures, he writes books, he teaches at
Troy State University in Alabama, he edits a hard-hitting newsletter
called The Sentinel, he publishes consumer research, and runs the Monday
Club in Washington, D. C., which is an elite group of people. And, he
basically, however, beyond all this, he squeezes into his spare time, he's
created The National Journalism Center in which literally dozens of stu-
dents from all over the nation go to this journalism center, they learn
about journalism and they actually get jobs in mainline publications,
Readers' Digest, some of them have worked for Evans and Novak, and I
really would ask you people out there who are interested in it, to talk
to him about it and to write to him about it, because I think if conser-
vatives are going to influence or can influence anything or should in-
fluence anything, it certainly should be the media, and I think this is a
great way in which to do it. So, without further ado, I now present you
Stan Evans
Thank you
Thank you very much, Alan. I appreciate the commercial and
welcome the opportunity of appearing here with three of my very good
friends; in fact, Bill Rusher and Lyn Nofziger and I were indeed, all
Reaganites in 1968 there in the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach and Bill
Page 12
and I never were for Nixon until Watergate
and we
had we
known he was doing stuff like that it would have been an entirely
different story, but
it seems to me that the question we are here
to address this morning is: Will Jim Baker seek a Second Term??
I'm afraid my good friend, Bill and I do part company here. I think
we're looking at the same phenomena but with rather different emphses.
Like the story about
is the glass half full or half empty? I think
it's the question on whether it's 5% full or 95% empty and Bill is
focusing on the 5%. I'd like to look at the 95%. From my standpoint,
in 1980, a great opportunity was presented to the country and to the
conservatives and to this administration. I believe in all candor, that
that opportunity has been defaulted. I think that there has been no
Reagan revolution in Washington; there will be, under present circum-
stances, no Reagan revolution in Washington and I'm here to give you my
reasons for believing that and then to conclude the latter part of the
3½ hours that have been allotted to us,
some possible steps for
remedying what I think is a rather unfortunate situation. It is true
that Ronald Reagan is a good man and as I've indicated, I think all of
us are strong supporters of Mr. Reagan. I think there are probably more
Reaganites on this platform than there are in the White House
and I think, in addition, that the president's intentions are indeed,
good. I think he is a good man, I think he is trying to do what is
right, and when he does things that are right, we should support him and
say that they're right. And, I can think of many things, Bill has cited
some, I can think of others like energy deregulation and/Adelman this appoint-
ment for which he is suffering a great deal of grief, and Jim Watt and
many other things in this administration that deserve our support. And,
we should not relent in that support in the slightest. The problem is,
it seems to me, that while the Reagan administration has been good on some
marginal issues and in some areas of controversy, that if you look at the
fundamental tasks that this administration was sent here to perform, it is
not performing them. And, the two main examples are the continued growth
VAS
of government on the home front, and the faltering, fassillating performance
of the United States in foreign policy. And, there certainly isn't enough
time to explore all of this, but let me just address these two areas
very briefly. Bill said that to the question is how much more will
spending be cut for domestic programs and how much more will taxes be
cut, in the agenda of debate on the domestic side? Well, in fact, that's
not so. The budget is not being cut; the budget continues to grow, right now,
Page 13
just as rapidly as it did under Jimmy Carter. In fact, slightly more
rapidly. In the four years of the Carter administration the budget was
increasing at annual rate, an annual dollar rate, of 64 billion dollars
a year. In the first 2 years of the Reagan administration, under current
annual
projections, it is increasing at average rate of 74 billion dollars
a year. The average real growth of the budget in the final 2 years of
the Carter administration, '80 and '81, averaged 4.5 percent. The real
growth of the budget in 1982, the first fiscal year of Ronald Reagan,
real growth was 6.3 per cent. Under Carter the budget as a percent of
the gross national product averaged 22 percent. Under Reagan, last year,
it went to 24 percent and this year it is projected to go to 25 percent.
And all these figures, despite what Mr. Reagan said in Human Events this
week, are from his own budget document. The question of taxes, I won't
go into all the details of why the tax cut and I'm for that, and I want
him to stand firm on the 3rd phase of it, in indexing and I'm strongly
supportive of those concepts, nonetheless, as good as those are, and
he is to be commended for promoting that program, they do not add up to
a tax cut, but the partial roll back of the continuing automatic tax in-
crease built into the system before he got here for Social Security and
the upward climb of taxes through bracket creep as people are pushed into
higher brackets through inflation. That will net out so that when the
entire package is implemented the average American will still be paying
as much or more in taxes as he or she was paying before the program be-
gan. Now, after all that happens, because the spending has continued to
increase while the tax line, while it increased, it did not increase
as rapidly as spending, huge deficits are projected for the future for
this year and down the road and what we are seeing now is because the
spending has not been brought under control, people are scrambling in the
administration, in Congress to increase our taxes. Last summer the
Congress passed with the backing of the administration, what was in fact,
the largest legislative tax increase in American history, 228 billion
dollar five year tax increase. We now have further prospective tax in-
creases for this miserable Social Security compromise which is another
default in getting the spending under control. We're going to raise
taxes to pay for all of that stuff, and many other tax hikes are being
contemplated in this session of Congress and within the administration.
So the issue right now isnot, indeed, How much are we going to cut taxes?,
it's HOW much are we going to raise taxes?, and I guarantee you, your
taxes will probably be raised before this Congress is out.
Page 14
But I'm a great fan of Jean Kirkpatrick, I'm a great fan of
uhh
Ken Tomlinson at the Voice of America and some other people that I might
name, Ken Adelman is a good man and certainly should be supported.
Nontheless, If you look at the basic conduct of our foreign policy,
under the State Department, you see that the same programs are being
administered and implemented as were being administered and implemented
under the Carter Administration, I would argue with Bill about the
Taiwan thing; I won't take time to do that today. I will simply say that
the communique that was handed down last August, in every particular,
was an extension of the Carter policy
so viewed by the people in the
State Department who concocted it
so viewed by Peking
and so viewed
by the Taiwanese to whom I have talked. If you take a look at SALT, to
disarmament, to talks, we are continuing to abide under Ronald Reagan to by
the SALT II Treaty, unratified, rejected by the Democrat Senate, and
nontheless, this Administration continues to abide by its terms, even
though Ronald Reagan said that it was fatally flawed. There's a mass
of evidence that the Soviet Union is violating the SALT I agreement and
the ABM Treaty that was adopted in 1972. I've been trying since July
to get the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency to confirm or deny some
several dozen Soviet violations of the SALT accords. I've addressed
these questions directly to members of the National Security Council.
They will not answer my questions! What is happening under this
Administration, under ACDA (Arms Control and Disarmament) is an extension
of what was happening under Carter, which started under Henry Kissinger,
under Gerald Ford, which is, in my view, a cover-up by the Administration
of the fact that the Soviet Union is, indeed, violating the SALT accords
to cover up or trying to keep the illusion of the SALT process and detente
alive. If you look at El Salvador, we continue to back a collectivist
land reform imposed on that country by coersion, by the Carter Administration
which is ravaging the economy of El Salvador. We have the same attitudes
in many respects, in the State Department towards the more conservative
elements in El Salvador that prevailed under Jimmy Carter; and destabiliza-
tion effort, in my opinion, has been conducted by the State Department
against Roberto d'Aubbison (sp?) down there. If you look at the issue of
Red trade, the strongest stand that this Administration has taken was
against the re-export of American technology and equipment to the
Siberian pipeline, that was the one place the President had drawn the
line
They have now backed off of that. You can go through a whole
litany of these things. If you look at what is happening in both Domestic
Page 15
and Foreign Policy, with these marginal distinctions, what you see is
not as the President says, and I think he believes this, gradual movement
back in a different direction, but continued movement in the same direction,
on both Domestic and Foreign Policy, perhaps at a slightly slower rate of
speed, than would have prevailed under Jimmy Carter, but nontheless,
movement in the same direction. Now why does this happen? It happens,
in part, because the tremendous
it doesn't happen because Ronald Reagan
doesn't want to change things, He does
It happens because of the
tremendous intractibility of the system that is built, in place, in this
parasitic city. (applause) You have an enormous (applause) (Lyn wants
to know if that means its like Paris) and
uhh
(Lyn, I'll explain this
to you after I get through) What you have here
the bureaucracy and
all of that, but you also have built into place, seventy-five percent
of the budget, which consists of automatic, un
so-called uncontrollable
spending, and about half of that is so-called entitlement programs,
which are geared to external economic indicaters: Unemployment Comp,
Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, a whole host of programs which
grind forward on an automatic basis, as the economic indicaters change,
and that makes the numbers that are written down by the budget planners
at OMB and CBO utterly meaningless, and all the budget projections of the
Reagan Administration, have been totally wrong at every step of the way
because that process is continuing. You have a similar thing in the
Foreign Policy side. The State Department consists of a bureaucracy that
has been in place there for not simply decades, in some cases for a
generation. And the continue to implement the Foreign Service bureaucracy
today
continues to pursue the same programsAthat it pursued before. The Reagan
Administration, it seems to me, has underestimated the intractibility of
that problem and many other problems that it has to deal with, and has
POSTURE
repeatedly gotten itself it the position of back-peddling, being
defensive, vis-a-vis the massed forces against it. And that the com-
promises, everybody knows that politics consists of compromises, the
name of the game is to get the compromise going in your direction, not
to be backing up and compromising in the other guy's direction. (applause)
Does
Now, if you look at why this has happened I think a lot of it/go to the
question of appointments, I think there is no question about that, it is
true (applause) There are Reaganites
There are Reaganites here and
there in any Department of government, but I've talked to Reaganites in
virtually every cabinet Department of this government today, and I can
Page 16
tell you, from what they tell me, that every one of them feels isolated
under attack, surrounded by Bush people, moderates, Carterites, Hold-
overs, (applause) these people, in every case, feel like they are on
the defensive, fighting a holding action, not able to implement the
President's policies because they are surrounded by people who do not
believe in those policies. The worst part of the appointments process
in this government is in the White House, itself. That is the core of
the difficulty (applause) For reasons that I do not fully comprehend,
the President has staffed the Legislative side of his operation over
there with people who have absolutely no track record whatsoever of
believing in Reaganite philosophy, of supporting Ronald Reagan, when
there was any option within the Republican Party to support anybody else
his Chief-of-Staff supported Gerald Ford in 1976 against Ronald Reagan
when we were all supporting Ronald Reagan; His Chief-of-Staff was the
campaign manager for George Bush in 1980 when all of us were supporting
Ronald Reagan. Yet that is the person who's made the Cheef-of-Staff
in the White House, who brings in, as his deputy, a man named Richard
Darman who used to work for Elliot Richardson, who is the guy who
controlls the flow of information to the President. And you can go
right down the line in that staff and see that there is not a Reaganite
in the bunch. And it seems to me, that when you've got that kind of
situation sitting right there in the White House, it is very going to
be very difficult, indeed, to get legislative strategy or appointments
which reflect the Reaganite philosophy. The President (applause) The
President may well believe, as he said in his interview with Alan, that
he tells Jim Baker what to do, and that is so, but it is Jim Baker and
Richard Darman and others of there ilk, who decide what options are
presented to the President. A good example was the tax increase last
summer: According to Time magazine, there was a legislative strategy
group run by Baker and Darman which presented the options to the President
which blocked out access to the President by people in the White House
staff who were against the tax increase and who prevented Conservatives
in Congress from making their case effectively to the President. They
control the information flow, they set the aggenda, they limit the
options the President believes that he has. That is a very, very serious
problem, indeed. Above all, people of this nation, the pragmatic,
problem-solving people who are in the White House do not have the
temperament one needs to conduct a Reagan Revolution, they do not see issues
them as we see them in this room. They think of us as a faction to be
Page 17
appeased
We've been over there to the White House, we were brought in
there just like American Indians, and handicapped Fillipinos
and,
(laughter) you know bring 'em in, massage 'em you know
let 'em
air their gripes, and get 'em out
That is exactly the way they look
at us! They do not look at us as part of this administration, they look
at us as an element that might be useful to them; They do not look at
us as part of what they are doing and they do not look at themselves as
an extension of what we're trying to do. It seems to me that that is the
source of the default of the so-called Reagan Revolution
of the kind
of people who are running this Administration at that level. Now, that's
the good news (laughter) Now I want to give you what I think are steps
to improvement. I do not believe you're going to get a Revolution of
our kind out of this Administration. However, let me suggest four steps
that I think should be taken, and we should work on, and we should
demand in our political advocacy. Number 1, by far, in terms of the
short term, is that the President should be asked by all of us and by
Conservatives everywhere in America, to fire Jim Baker, and all of his
ilk! (enthusiastic, sustained applause) Assuming (He says there's two
Bakers, I'll come to that other one in a minute) We have got to keep
it's absolutely correct that we have got to keet pressure on this Admin-
istration on these issues, keep it up: Support the Administration when
it is right; But, point out when it is wrong, and say it's wrong. Keep
fighting it. (applause) Third, we have got to get some leadership in
Congress. I would tend to say that if you're talking about the long pull,
changing some
it's absolutely right
Ronald Reagan cannot change with
a magic wand what is wrong in this government today. You have got to
have people on Capitol Hill who are going to go in and undo this
entitlement situation, reform entitlements in a realistic way. The
Administration should propose it. It has not proposed it. Which is
it's fault. But even if it did propose it, the kind of leadership that
we have in Congress would not achieve the objective. You have got a
Republican leadership in Congress which is, in my view, pitiful! You
talk about Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Bob Packwood, Chuck Percy, (boos)
this is the opposite of leadership. This is leadership that pulls in
the wrong direction and presents the President with yet more options of
compromising in the wrong direction. That has got. to be changed. I
would have to think that if you had to pick one thing that should be
changed in the very short run, something to which Conservatives around
America could dedicate themselves, it is to defeat Chuck Percy when he
Page 18
runs for office again! (applause) Unfortunately, there are people in
the Administration who send the President out to do fundraisers for
Chuck Percy. That issymptomatic of the problems in the White House.
We need to get more Conservatives in Senate and the House where we
need them to coordinate those people
There is almost no coordination,
no leadership over there
people are fighting lone battles, they are
not focused. The one exception to the rule of not paying attention to
things that other people are working on
the guy who tries, on every
issue, to come forward, to stand for what is right, is Jesse Helms of
North Carolina. (applause) The final thing is that even as we try for
short term change
and we must, we must fight all these battles, we
must fight them much better than we've been fighting them
We need to
lift our sights. Bill Rusher, Alan Ryskind, Lyn Nofziger, all the
people in this room, all of us, have been working on this stuff for
years. Some of us for thirty years, or more. And, that's gotta keep
going. We cannot relent. We cannot be disheartened, because of a
because of set-backs, under a given Administration. We cannot say, well,
that's it, I throw in the towel because we elected Ronald Reagan, it
didn't get the job done. Ronald Reagan, as great a man as he is, is a
footnote, a honorable footnote, a great footnote, in the whole history
of this movement. But the reason this country is great, and the reason
that it will continue to be great, is not because of any one man, it is
not because of any one President, it is not because of one politician,
it's because of the people of this country, the people of this country
who, first built the Conservative movement, nominated Ronald Reagan,
elected Ronald REagan, those people are still out there. You're still
out there. The people who responded to the concerns of growing government,
and vascillation in foreign policy, still have the same distresses and
the same aspirations they had when they voted for him in 1980. And as I
think they will continue to vote for him in 1984. I think that we have
to look beyond this Administration. Keep working within it. Look down
the road. Keep building our movement. Keep articulating what we believe.
Keep working for candidates who support what we believe. And I think that
the opportunity that was presented to us in 1980 which in my view of the
short term has been defaulted, can be reclaimed. And that we can, in
this country
time, restoreAto the ways of freedom, intended for it by it's founders.
Thank you.
(applause)
Page 19
- I understand that we have time for just a few question, really, because
Jack Kemp has a schedule, and, so I can only ask maybe one or two
questions. I would Go ahead Sir.
- My name is Russ Wittenburg (sp?) from Carefree, Arizona. And, I would
like to take this opportunity to tell you from what I have heard in the
last three days, to compliment Stan Evans, Howard Phillipps, and Pat
Buchanan as telling it like it is. My questions, two of them, Number One,
Would somebody like to comment on holdovers in the Reagan Administration
of the members of the Trilateral Commission; and, Why can't we have
vintage Reagan, like we had last night, for the State of the Union
message when we had something Reagan, moderate Reagan?
Nofziger (?) I'd like to say about the holdovers in the Reagan Administration
I wish to hell we'd got 'em all fired! I think that's a disaster!
RUSHER
To take the other half of the gentleman's question, and I want to use
this to
to,
sort
of
comment generally on Stan Evans' critique,
with a good deal of which I agreed, in the particulars. Although, I
must say that it
I would no longer advise anybody after my departure,
to ask Stan precisely what I would have felt on certain of these matters.
A high official of this Administration said to me not long ago, ruefully,
because I think he is a Conservative, he said, you know, sometimes
Conservatives have the impression that the election of 1980 repealed
all of the laws they don't like. And it didn't. We are assuming much
too much if we think it did. If we think that every (valeity ?) that
ever occurred to us was ratified and passed into law by a plebiscitary
vote of the American people on election day, 1980; forget it! No such
thing happened! And any man who, elected that day, proceded on that
assumption, would fall flat on his face, because the American people
never gave him any mandate of that size and type. Ronald Reagan has an
estimate of what the American people would approve in relation to the
maybe quite different things that that he himself would like to bring
about, and he is bringing about as many of those as possible. This is
the work of government and of politics. And I think that it is all very
well for you and me, because we are not President, to live in a world
if we want to, of our dreams, where everything goes our way. Don't ask
him to, he has to live in the real world. (applause)
Thank you very much.
EVANS Joe (2) Let me just briefly address this. It seems to me that the
question of holdovers goes to the issues that Bill was addressing. It
Page 20
is indeed very difficult to change what exists here, and that I think
should be the premise of any intelligent discussion. The difficulty is
that you've got a lot of people in this Administration that don't
particularly think it should be changed. So, they want business as
usual. They want to maneuver within the existing framework, and, that
is the problem in terms of blunting the President's own desires to
bring about some kind of transformation. Secondly, in terms of the
reality, Bill, when people of this city talk about reality, the President's
coming to terms with reality, every time he get's praised in the
Washington Post or the New York Times for coming to terms with reality,
it makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Because, what they're
talking about is the reality of Washington! They We're talking about what
they want. they talk about what the parasites and the vampires in this
city want to keep a good thing going for bureaucrats and consultants
and high-paid lawyers and accountants and all of the rest of them that
are
that are living high off the hog at the expense of the American
taxpayer. But the reality that Ronald Reagan should be looking at is
not this reality, it is to deal with it, it should be the reality of
the American people. The reality of what they want, which is totally
different from what the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the
bureaucracy want. And I would remind you this: In every and you and
I have seen this time and time again
you talk about what political
feasibility of what we believe. The Republican Party doesn't run to
the Left and then try to govern to the Right. The pattern is the
opposite. It runs to the Right. Ronald Reagan did not run in 1980
and appeal to the American people that I'm going to adjust and compromise
which is what Jimmy Carter did. And continue these programs and let the
budget grow at the same rate and all of that. He said I'm going to
change it. That's what they wanted. That is where true political
strength exists for the Republican Party. Not in this fudging and
compromising and caving in, to Washington, DC. (applause)
Alan
- (Ryskind) Could I have a sentence? Jack Kemp is waiting outside. Okay
one more question.
- I'm Dahl Stevens, Arlington, VA. Isn't one of the problems here the
reliance on the Eastern Establishment which was the backbone of the
Republican Party 50 years ago, but a lot of them have gone over to the
Democrats who are very willing to give them special favors. And, the
Page 21
big establishment is simply not coming through? And I have seen this
in other places, and in the White House.
?? The answer is yes! (Evans ?)
(Rusher) Ithink that there is a real shift in this country, in terms of
the power base, to the West and the South, and away from the Eastern
Establishment and I think the Conservatives are totally comfortable
with that. At the same time I must warn you, if this is my last comment,
let it be, not to get yourself too heavily innoculated with the idea
people
that the American/in their vast majorities are all sitting out there,
saying to you people and me, here in this room, thinking as we do, you
are absolutely right; Some of them are, and some of them aren't! Now,
don't get intoxicated with the idea that the whole world is your way
and just a few people on the Washington Post stand between you and
triumph.
Evans: The American people did say in 1980, that Ronald Reagan was right.
That's the issue (speaking to Bill Rusher) It's not what we think
Rusher- But Ronald Reagan, even in 1980, represented a great many things to a
great many people. Not just the particular program that you or I might
have.
(Nofziger) This is the first time in my life, I've been caught in the
middle of a filibuster.
(Ryskind) I am clearly not a moderator. Wait one second here. Apparently
Jack Kemp is going to come in. We would hope that you would all stay
seated, so that we can run Jack Kemp up here. And then if you want to
talk to the speakers outside, mob them, and mug them or whatever you
want to do, they 11 be outside on the exit. Also, please give applause
to these very stimulating speakers. (applause)
RONALD REAGAN LIBRARY
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Reaganat Mid - Jerm: An Assessment
Moderator Alan Ryskind
1983 Conservative Pol. Action Conf.
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Rev. 12/11/2003
CPAC
Copy of
THE WHITE HOUSE
what went
WASHINGTON
down last
February 24, 1982
night 2-24
MEMORANDUM FOR RICHARD DARMAN
FROM:
ELIZABETH H. DOLE
cell
SUBJECT:
Comments Re CPAC Speech Draft
Please see attached pages 1, 3 and 13 for recommended specific
changes. From an overall content standpoint, the audience will
greet the delivery of this speech with much enthusiasm.
In attempting to observe the delivery of this speech in a "macro"
sense, one might get the impression of an audience saying "Reagan
is a nice guy and don't we love him." However, from an historic
standpoint, grassroots conservative organizations have been most
enthusiastic when the President has been forcefully in the lead,
battling against the common foes of conservatism. In short, a
"call to arms" speech.
The addition of some of this fire, leadership and continued
urgency for activism might move this to the "barn-burner"
category. Much of FDR's success during his darker days can
be attributed to his constant efforts to keep his coalition
together, in battle, against a common enemy. The President
needs to help keep the grassroots from becoming complacent.
Page 13
Now I think we can be proud of the fact that a conservative
administration has pursued these goals by confronting the
Nation's economic problems head-on. But it should not be
forgotten that we also dealt with one other less publicized,
but equally grave problem: the serious state of disrepair
in our national defenses. The last Democratic administration
had increased real defense spending at a rate of 1.8 percent
a year -- not even enough to keep up with inflation. I
don't think I have to recount for you again all the horror
stories of 1980: the fighter planes that couldn't fly; the
navy ships that couldn't leave port; the rapid deployment
force that was neither rapid, nor deployable, nor a force.
The protection of this Nation's security is the most
solemn duty of any President: that is why I have asked for
substantial increases this year in our defense budget.
Those who think these increases are excessive should contemplate
the erosion that has taken place in defense spending during
the past two decades. In 1962, President Kennedy's budget
called for defense spending that accounted for 47.8 percent
of the entire budget; even with our increases, the defense
spending this year will account for only 28.5 percent of the
budget -- almost/half bonely of that figure 20 years ago. In 1962,
^
President Kennedy's request for military spending accounted
for 9 percent of the gross national product; even with our
in my budget
increases, the figure today is only 6.3 percent of the gross
1
national product.
Those who call for defense spending cuts should think
long and hard about the reaction they are likely to get from
the American people. The Soviet Union outspends us by 50
Page 3
that this remains a company town. And there's only one
company, one business, one vested interest here -- its name
is Government, Big Government.
the
You know, I remember what Stan Evans used to call a few
years ago his "iron law of politics": "When our people get
this Eurns correct
where
someplace they can do us some good -- they stop being our
and
people. " And it is easy to come here and forget our principles
and our constituents -- to start wanting to be an insider,
to start talking the conventional wisdom -- to forget that
there's a big country out there across the Potomac, a country
that sent us here with one job in mind: to cut the size and
burden of government not to increase it.
Now I don't think that's happened in our Administration.
In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that a few of you here
tonight agree with my recent decision not to ask the Congress
for higher taxes. But let's be honest with ourselves: its
going to take more than 402 days to completely transform the
Federal bureaucracy. This came home to me the other day
when I learned about one private citizen in Louisiana who
wrote to HUD asking for help in developing his property and
received this letter back from the bureaucracy: "We have
observed that you have not traced the title prior to 1803.
Before final approval, it will be necessary that the title
be traced previous to that year. "
So this particular citizen wrote to Washington:
"Gentlemen, I am unaware that any educated man failed to
know that Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803. The
title of the land was acquired by France by right of conquest
from Spain. The land came into possession of Spain in 1492
by right of discovery by an Italian sailor, Christopher
(Dolan/AB)
February 24, 1982
CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE DINNER
FEBRUARY 26, 1982
Nancy and I are delighted to be here at the ninth
annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Anyone
looking at the exciting program you have scheduled over
these 4 days -- and the size of this gathering here tonight --
cannot help but be impressed with the energy and vitality of
the conservative movement in America. And I think we owe a
special debt of gratitude to the staffs of the American
Conservative Union, Young Americans for Freedom, Human
Note:
Events and National Review for making this year's conference
began
1973 that
most successful in the brief but long. impressive history of
this event.
It in 1965 sched is
You may remember that when I spoke to you last year I
said the election victory we enjoyed in November of 1980 was
not a victory of politics so much as it was victory of
on
ideas; not a victory for any one man or party but a victory
for a set of principles -- principles that had been protected
and nourished during years of grim and heartbreaking defeats
by a few dedicated Americans.
You are those Americans -- and tonight I salute you.
But I've also come here tonight to remind you of how much
remains to be done and to ask your help in turning into
reality even more of our hopes for America and the world.
The agenda for this conference is victory -- victory in
this year's crucial congressional, State and local elections.
The media coverage you have received this week and the
attention paid to you by so many distinguished Americans --
in and out of government, conservative and not so conservative --