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Transcript of Ford's 1977 speech at WestminsterMissourian News, Dec 28,
2006
Following is a transcript of an address delivered by former President Gerald Ford on Oct. 29, 1977, at Westminster College in Fulton. Ford’s speech was the 35th in Westminster’s John Findley Green Lecture series. The transcript, which originally ran in The Fulton Sun-Gazette, was provided by Carolyn Branch and Martin Northway of the Callaway County Public Library. I would not compare myself either in statesmanship or in eloquence to the man who made “Iron Curtain” part of the global language. But I will not yield to Winston Churchill, or anyone else, my love of freedom. Indeed, it is this devotion to democracy that compels me to speak out today as he did in March 1946. For the situation in Europe, while different, is no less potentially severe. Then Winston Churchill said that the shadow of an aggressive Soviet Union threatened and endangered Europe. The Communist party in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were subverting the workings of free governments; an Iron Curtain had descended from the Baltic to the Balkans. Today, a shadow again hangs heavy over the future of Europe. This time it is the threat of Communist parliamentary takeover in some Western European nations that shrouds the face of democracy. In Italy, the Communists, by winning 34 per cent in last year’s election, have already won a virtual veto over government policies in the Italian Parliament. In France, a coalition of the Communists and Socialists in the presidential election of 1974 came within two percentage points of victory. A victory for such a coalition next March would bring Communists in key ministerial positions. And in the Iberian Peninsula where democracy, after an era of autocracy, is having its fragile beginning, red leaders in Portugal have brutally fought to increase their anti-democratic influence to dominance. From the shores of the Adriatic to those of the Atlantic, a new specter of Communist control hovers over the countries of Western Europe, Lisbon, Paris, Rome — all of the Parliaments in these capitals — now confirm the clutch of Communist power. Yet, I do not find such Communist domination to be inevitable. I draw hope from the lesson of Fulton when Winston Churchill, by daring to tell the truth, steeled the will of the West. If we can strip from the Euro-Communists their deceit of democratic pretension, the forces of freedom will win. If we can be as ruthless in telling the truth about the Euro-Communists as they would suppress it, the cause of democracy will live. For Euro-Communism is not as their propagandists say, “Communism with a human face;” it is Stalinism in a mask and tyranny in disguise. Recently, in France, a 27-year-old former Marxist labeled it “barbarism with a human face.” “The new philosophies,” as they were identified, warn that Communism everywhere relies on brutality and repression as central to its process. The Communist party in Lisbon, Rome, and Paris in 1977, is basically no different from that we saw in Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague in 1947. Their devotion then to free institutions was shown in Czechoslovakia when President Jan Masaryck was hurled to this death and the hope of the Czech democracy with him. A few years ago, we saw the same brutality when an East German minister committed suicide after being forced to sign over drastic trade concessions in a Kremlin-dictated treaty. The harsh truth is that when Communism achieves command — either by ballot or bullets — sovereignty is lost and democracy destroyed. Never in the history of free government has a Communist party, once in control, yielded to a majority vote. Never in the annals of free parliaments have the Communists, once voted in, allowed liberties to continue. Communism may come to power by democracy but it keeps its power by tyranny. In that, as in most features, the Communist is indistinguishable from the Fascist. Both share a contempt for human rights and personal liberties. Europe may sometime forget that the Nazis first won power in German elections but they can never forget the Secret Police and its Gestapo tactics that enforced that power. For thirty years, since the end of World War II, the knock on the door at midnight, the sudden disappearance of friends or relatives, has been unknown in Western Europe. But it has not been so in Eastern Europe where Communist Parties have won control. There, the heel of Hitlerism was replaced by the boot of Stalinism. If some Italians do not feel that a Communist regime in Italy would be subservient to Kremlin strategy, they should read the interview of Italian Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer to the London Press last year when he stated that in foreign policies his party would always side with the Soviets. The proof of such subjection is found when the Italian Communist Party Congress unanimously praises the Cubans in Angola in one vote and unanimously denounces the Israelis at Entebbe in the next. Yet, somehow, the myth persists that the Communists in Europe are almost the equivalent of “Social Democrats.” If that were true, there would be no Berlin Wall. Not a day goes by on that side of the curtain without someone risking their lives to escape. Farmers who have lost their farms, shopkeepers who have lost their shops, teachers who have lost their freedom daily brave barbed wire and gunfire to register their choice of Democratic West over Communist East. Despite the Wall, however, many French and Italians think that Communist administrations in Paris and Rome would somehow be different. But they are wrong if they believe the Euro-Communists are just a Leftist version of the Socialists. In 1975, the French Communist Congress voted 1,500 to zero to keep the line in the Leninist Constitution — dictatorship of the “Proletariat.” The next year after the Kremlin softened the words in their own constitution to ready “Hegemony of the Workers,” the French Communists, like puppets, voted to change it like the Soviets 1,500 to zero. The pattern of 10 per cent controlled majorities so alien in the caucuses and conventions of free political parties, is the rule, not the exception with Euro-Communists. Nevertheless, to some intellectuals, students, urban workers, the Communist party still seems an attractive alternative. They should first look, however, to the East before they trade in their liberties they have for the Utopia they are promised. When scientists in East Germany are committed to mental institutions, there is no academic freedom. When Union members in the biggest light bulb factory in Poland recently were handed a 50 per cent pay cut, there is no collective bargaining. The fact is that under Communist party government journalists cannot freely write, workers cannot freely strike, and students cannot freely seek knowledge and truth. Although many Europeans profess dim awareness of such Stalinist tyranny, they say they are voting from Communist party candidates as a protest. To them, it is just a dramatic means of registering their dissatisfaction with the status quo. But Europeans should realize that their vote against the Establishment may bring in a far worse kind of establishment — whose grafts would be more exploitative and whose grip would be more entrenched than any they have ever known. History shows that Communists will play by the rules when that is the way to get on top, but they abolish the rules when that is the way to keep on top. The Communists are quite willing to ride in the same car with the Socialists to get to power, but they insist on the driver’s seat. The curse of Communist candidates in a democratic system is their false and fantastic promises. The Communists don’t worry about elections — once in power they abolish them. Communism is a one-way street. Once you go down that road, there is no return. Many in Eastern Europe have learned to their horror that a vote casually cast for the Communists was the last they ever cast. The test for the conduct of Communists lies not in their promises for the future but in their performance in the past. The Marxists preach economic equality and social justice, yet the world they have built is not “No Class” but the “New Class.” Such is the title of a book by the former Yugoslav Communist, Milovan Djilas, which describes the privileged elite of the ruling class in Communist-run countries. As Hedrich Smith of the New York Times wrote, the new patricians are the party chiefs, factory bosses and military brass. Together with ranking technocrats, favored scientists and pet journalists, they comprise the new caste. Since Russia is the model state for European Communists, it is well to examine the life of this “new class.” They are sometimes called the “Commi-Czarists” for they have privileges even the nobility didn’t have in pre-revolutionary days. They shop in their own shops and purchase with their own currency. In traffic, they take over certain lanes, and in theatre, they take the choice seats. For this “new nobility” of party bosses and state bureaucrats who with their families number in the millions, there are separate worlds of curtained cars, private clubs, and secret dachas. Thus, if class division is a reason for revolt, there may be more cause for concern on their side of the curtain than ours, for here the good life is no ever-distant mirage for a worker and consumer. In the last three decades in Europe, they have seen luxuries become necessities and yearnings new standards of life. History has been on our side — not the Soviets. They are not gaining, but falling behind in economic productivity and progress. And as that gap grows, their consumers become more dissatisfied and their satellite countries more discontented. As a result, some Communist managers are offering incentive inducements and profit sharing plans. In other words, when Communists are tentatively starting to turn our way, we in the West should not be starting to turn their way. Yet strangely enough, the very success of the West in building economies to the extent never dreamed of three decades ago fuels disquiet and unrest. Intellectuals denounce our system for materialism when it is prosperous, and for injustice, when it fails to insure prosperity. With such rising expectations, inequalities are more sorely felt and inequities more deeply resented. Inflation angers those who are not working, and recessions those who are not. And on top of all of that, a massive impersonal bureaucracy that seems unresponsive to their needs, triggers in citizens a sense of frustration and impotence. The result is that democracy appears to some — inadequate to the problems. But here the words of Churchill are singularly appropriate. “Democracy is the worst system of government,” he said, and then continued, “except for every other form.” I would amend that by saying that democracy sometimes seems the worst because it can’t move as fast as dictatorships of the right or left, but it is the best because it puts its face and fate in the people. Democracy sometimes seems the worst because freedom let its failings be advertised, but it is the best because the same freedom put no stops on dreams and hopes. In 1946, when Western Europe lay shattered by the destruction of its pre-war economy and threatened by the aggression of a hostile Soviet Union, Winston Churchill challenged the West to draw upon its inherent spirit, liberty. In a speech in Zurich University shortly after he spoke here at Westminster, he asked the European nations to put aside factional hates and regional jealousies for the cause of democracy and survival of the West. He said, “Can the free peoples of Europe rise to the height of these resolves of the soul and instincts of the spirit of man?” The record of Western Europe in the last three decades proves its answer to Churchill was affirmative. Its watch-word was strength, its theme cooperation, its system the free economy. With the unity of strength by NATO., and then the mutuality of trade by the common market and other organizations of the European community, Western Europe witnessed its proudest age of growth and development. Today the Western democracies must again master their own fate. They have the fiscal capacity to put their economies on the path of steady and noninflationary productivity and they have the intellectual capital to usher in a new era of political and scientific creativity. Democracy’s fight against communism must be that of enlightened realism. We in the West must proclaim the facts about Communist ways and re-examine the faith in our own. If Western will and heart is equal to the wisdom and heritage of its civilization, the cause of democracy will win. But as Western Europe readies for this antidemocratic threat, America must respond with similar resolve. From the presidency of Truman to that of my own, every administration has manifested its unequivocal opposition to the accession of Communist governments in Western Europe. Is there a changed attitude now taking place in our country? Communist labor leaders, over the objections of George Meany and others, have been extended the opportunity to come to the United States. Recently, some in authority have subtly planted the idea that the United States would have little difficulty in getting along with Communists in holding key ministries in the government of, say, Italy and France. I think I reflect the overwhelming will of the American people when I say that such an impression throughout America is utterly false. All Americans love freedom, and will stand up for those friends of freedom. The America that enacted the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine have not changed. The America that has encouraged and supported the idea of the European Community is not wavering. The America that is still a member of NATO remains steadfast. This will of our people must be manifested in the words of its leaders. Any ambiguity by them leaves the impression that we expect the Communists to eventually win. Communism is a form of religion which is fueled by belief in its own inevitability. If the United States does not communicate its opposition at the highest level, we may make it easier for the Communists to gain power. More important than the condition of human rights in those dictatorships which have abolished them is the preservation of those rights in those nations that still have them. There is hardly a score of democracies in the 150 or so nations in all the world, and most all of them in Western Europe. We Americans know that if democracy ends there, it may end for all the world. Many of us have our roots in Europe; our culture comes from that legacy. Our ideals of freedom and liberty from that heritage. We are determined that the cradle of civilization be not its grave. Last January when I gave my final State of the Union address in the Capitol, I said my farewell to Washington. As I spoke there in the House of Representatives, memories of old friends and past debates flashed through my mind and flooded my heart. For as Winston Churchill said he was “the child of the House of Commons,” I am the son of the House of Representatives. Most all my career was spent in its chamber and offices. The friction of argument, the clash of bill with amendment, the crossfire of the two parties, not only lit my life, it lit up the Capitol as it had for almost 200 years. It was almost as if the heat and ardor of our free debate and assembly was what illuminated the Capitol dome that glowed each night Congress was in session. I remember one wintry day a few years ago driving away from Capitol Hill and looking up at the dome to find it draped in darkness. The late fall mist had blanketed the features of that majestic symbol. After a moment’s shock I recalled that due to the energy shortage it had been decided to shut off the lights of the cupola and rotunda. Then I pondered, what if the lights had been turned off figuratively as well as mechanically? What if America had no two-party system, no democracy, no freedom? In Western Europe today — from the Straits of Dover off Normandy to the Straits of Messina at Sicily — a shadow looms over democracy. The parliaments of Italy, Portugal, and France face the dark possibility of takeover by one party — a party that is anti-democratic in purpose and totalitarian in procedure — a party rendered more sinisterly dangerous by its intimate association with fellow party members all over the world. For the Communist party of Russia, Eastern and Western Europe are as one in their aim to destroy NATO , break up the Common Market and subvert other free institutions. But if lovers of liberty attack the hypocrisy of the Euro-Communist, the lights of free elections and assembly will not be extinguished. If the defenders of freedom unmask the sham of Communist pretensions of democracy, the beacons of certain parliaments will not be eclipsed. In 1914, a leader of the British Parliament Edward Gray said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” If we in the West react with indifference instead of resolve, I can visualize descending upon the parliaments of Lisbon, Rome, Paris and others, the death-shroud of one-party rule. If we are ambiguous instead of forthright, I could see covering those capitals of Europe a canopy of tyranny. I am now 64 years old. If any of the lights of those parliaments are snuffed out, I will not see them turned on again in my lifetime David Gerard, 30 Dec 2006
Thursday morning, a man called to say the city fined him $150 for putting an old, worn-out couch out in his yard. “This is communism,” he told me. Thursday afternoon, I was talking with some friends and mentioned the Woody Guthrie song “This Land is Your Land.” “That’s a communist song,” someone said. Thursday night, I happened to watch an old Seinfeld episode. Elaine was dating a communist, also a bad dresser. “Fine, you want to be a Communist, be a Communist. Can’t you at least look like a successful Communist?” Elaine said. *****
Thursday was commie-eerie, and don’t take this wrong, but I kind of
miss the communists.Oh, make no mistake, communists were bad. But if you have to have an enemy, then I’d much prefer communists to terrorists. The communists were godless people. But now we have an enemy who has too much god. At least you could reason with communists. But when your enemy has too much god, you can pretty much throw reason out the window. I’m not trying to be mean, and maybe I don’t hear everything, but you don’t hear news about creativity coming out of countries run by Islamic fundamentalists or countries where they have great influence. That’s a shame because the cultivated East was a factor in bringing the West out of the Dark Ages. Now, mostly you hear about factionalism and fighting in the Near East. The communists were cruel and repressive — just like an evil enemy is supposed to be. But they were also creative. Russia put a satellite and a man in space before we did. Their engineers got the first spacecraft to the moon. The communists put their scientists to work, and they kept up with us Americans step by step in devising weapons of mass destruction. But these terrorists? They don’t devise new weapons. We have to worry about them begging, borrowing or stealing ours. Yes, I sort of miss the communists. I guess it’s a case of childhood memories being the best — you know, practicing at school diving under the desk or crouching by a hallway concrete wall in the event a nuclear holocaust occurred, reading “Fail Safe” and watching “Dr. Strangelove.” Ah, the good old days. We and the communists knew how to fight civilized wars — napalm, cluster bombs, bullets and projectiles laced with depleted uranium, assassinations of government officials and heads of state. But the terrorists don’t follow the rules we do. Oh, we did have those secret prisons, but President Bush closed them, right? And our smart bombs go astray and hit a wedding party occasionally, and we’re still holding several hundred men in camps without due process of law. We fight civilized wars, though, mostly, and it’s makes me miss the communists sometimes. Then again, you go to war against the enemy you have, not the enemy you’d like to have. And as sages often say, it could be worse. I remember reading a book by an eastern European who wrote that he thought the Nazis were bad until the communists showed up. Then the communists showed them what bad was. So as we head into 2007, we should be satisfied with the enemies we have. It could be worse. We could be facing the armies of the Antichrist. See also The Communist Manifesto Mao - A cigarette is tucked into the statues hand Right wing establishment influence in Scotland and the UK Problems with Putin Italian Constitution Political economy Paris 1968 |
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