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    "localId": "6743196",
    "label": "Final Typescript",
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{
    "id": "6743196",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6743196",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Final Typescript",
    "description": "This item consists of the final typescript of a radio broadcast given by Ronald Reagan on his syndicated radio commentary show \"Viewpoint\" regarding the Katyn Forest Massacre.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6743196",
    "collections": [
        "Ronald Reagan's Pre-Presidential Papers",
        "Radio Broadcasts, Speeches and Writings"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Katyn Massacre, Katyn, Russia, 1940"
    ],
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 2,
            "logicalDate": "1976-11-02",
            "month": 11,
            "year": 1976
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    "seq": 3,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "document",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/96/7431/6743196/content/arcmedia/presidential-libraries/reagan/katyn/KatynBroadcast_FinalTypescript.pdf",
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    "ocrText": "RONALD REAGAN RADIO BROADCAST\nSUBJECT: Katyn Forest\nNot all memories are pleasant, but we shouldn't put the unpleasant\nones out of our mind. At least not all of them. I'll be right back.\nIn a tiny cemetery in Gunnersbury, England on September 18th, 7000\npeople from all over the world gathered for the unveiling of a monument.\nIt is a 21 foot pyramid bearing the inscription, \"Katyn 1940\" and\na carved Polish eagle with a crown of barbed wire. Katyn is a name we\nshould all remember. It is the name of a forest in Poland. But the\nmonument does not memorialize a place. It is dedicated to 14,500 Polish\nofficers who served in the defense of Poland when the Nazis were invading\nfrom the West and the Russians from the East. The officers disappeared\nwhen the invading forces met and divided Poland.\nA few years later a mass grave was found in the Katyn forest. It\ncontained the bodies of forty-five hundred of those Polish officers who\nhad been executed and buried there. What of the other 10,000? It is\nbelieved they were put on barges that were towed out into icy arctic\nwaters and sunk -- drowning all on board.\nFor a time this massacre was thought to be just another Nazi\natrocity, but with the Nuremburg trials the truth was finally revealed.\nThe 14,500 officers had been captured by the Russians and murdered in\n1940 -- the date now inscribed on the memorial. As a matter of fact,\nthe Germans had found the grave in 1943 in what had been Russian\noccupied territory following the partition of Poland. The 4,500 had\ndug the grave and then standing on the pit's edge had been machinegunned.\nThe selection of Gunnersbury cemetery is an interesting sidelight\non relations between the free world and the Soviet Union. Maybe we need\nto be reminded there is still a Polish government in exile in London.\nmore--more--more\n2--2--2\nRONALD REAGAN RADIO BROADCAST\nSUBJECT: Katyn Forest\nIn 1971, the movement to honor the murdered officers was started and,\nbecause London is the home of that exiled Polish government, it was decided\nLondon should be the site of the memorial.\nThe British government was subjected to bitter and constant pressure\nfrom Moscow to prevent the raising of such a monument. Year-after-year\nthe British government blocked every location selected by the memorial\ncommission. Finally in some way the tiny, obscure Gunnersbury cemetery\nwas found and ended up as the only possible location for the memorial.\nLord Oswald, vice chairman of the commission, spoke at the dedication\nbut let it be known there was no official representative of the British\ngovernment nor of the Church of England present. He declared, \"Intrinsic\nalso, and essential is the date 1940 engraved upon the face, because\nthat relates in stone another element of the truth, which only the\nguilty, the ignorant, and the ignoble still crave to deny\".\nA Member of Parliament and former Conservative cabinet minister,\nJulian Amery, made known that he had invited representatives of other\ncountries in letters to 42 embassies. Only seven sent representatives\nto the little cemetery for the memorial ceremony and only one was a\nmajor power. There was Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, South Africa,\nUraguay, and you'll be proud I'm sure to know -- the United States of\nAmerica. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.\n########"
}