“America will not conduct ‘business as usual’ with the forces of oppression.”
-Ronald Reagan, January 26, 1982 State of the Union Address
President Reagan’s Fight for Human Rights
This past year, the fight for human liberty has been center stage in the Middle East and North Africa. The world looks
to America as a beacon, as an example of what freedom can bring the way it did when Ronald Reagan was president.
President Reagan never missed the opportunity to accentuate how the protection of basic human rights – life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness – is the supreme right of all people, often using the State of the Union Address as a way to
capture the nation’s attention. The Voices of Freedom Gallery in the Reagan Museum tells several stories of President
Reagan’s human rights accomplishments.
The State of the Union Address
In January, the American people await word from the Executive Office. The State of the Union Address is an American
tradition, mandated in the Constitution -- article II, section 3, where the President is required to inform Congress and to
recommend measures that he considers ``necessary and expedient.'' President Washington appeared before Congress
each year to offer his account but in 1801 President Jefferson substituted a written message. Presidents continued to
send Congress written messages until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of delivering the message in
person.
In over 200 Presidential messages to Congress certain themes reappear: national security -- economic growth -- and the
national experiment in human liberty, as in President Lincoln's second message, where he describes America as ``the
last, best hope of Earth.''
In President Reagan’s first State of the Union Address, delivered on January 26, 1982, he seized the opportunity to
reflect on the plight of the Polish people, suppressed by a brutal dictatorship which imposed martial law and waged war
against its own people. Recall his firm declaration, “When action is called for, we're taking it. Our sanctions against the
military dictatorship that has attempted to crush human rights in Poland -- and against the Soviet regime behind that
military dictatorship -- clearly demonstrated to the world that America will not conduct ‘business as usual’ with the
forces of oppression. If the events in Poland continue to deteriorate, further measures will follow….I urge all peaceloving peoples to join together… to raise their voices, to speak and pray for freedom.”
Again, in 1987, President Reagan told us that “…more responsible Soviet conduct around the world is a key element of
the U.S.-Soviet agenda. Progress is also required on the other items of our agenda as well -- real respect for human
rights….” What was going on behind the scenes during the Reagan presidency?
1981 Letter to Brezhnev
In 1981, we know that President Reagan personally wrote to General Secretary Brezhnev asking to meet with him. But
did you know, in a separate letter, President Reagan asked Brezhnev to release Natan Sharansky from prison? Accused
of being a spy, Mr. Sharansky had merely expressed his right to practice his religion in defiance of Soviet policy.
Longing to immigrate to Israel, Mr. Sharansky was arrested, instead, and spend 11 years in a Soviet Gulag. Finally, in
1986, Mr. Sharansky’s release was secured and he was awarded the Gold Medal of Freedom. “All the resources of a
superpower cannot isolate a man who hears the voice of freedom,” Mr. Sharansky told President Reagan, “a voice I
heard from the very chamber of my soul.”
Click here to read a handwritten draft of the letter:
1982 Released from Cuban Prison
After an international campaign led by President Reagan, Armando Valladares was released from the Cuban prison
system in 1982 after 22 years of imprisonment for being a counter-revolutionary. He described his confinement as
“eight thousand days of struggling to prove that I was a human being. Eight thousand days of proving that my spirit
could triumph over exhaustion and pain.” Upon moving to the United States, President Reagan appointed him to serve
as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
1983 A Family in the American Embassy
DIARY ENTRY: Friday, March 25, 1983 An hour meeting with Geo. S. just the 2 of us to talk about our quiet diplomacy efforts with Dobrynin. We may get those Pentacostalists out of the embassy in Moscow yet. Since 1978, four Soviet Pentecostalists were living in the basement of the American Embassy in Moscow. If they had
attempted to set foot off the embassy grounds, they would be arrested. Their crime: belief in their religion and belief in
God. In March of 1983, President Reagan met with Secretary Shultz and Ambassador Dobrynin to discuss the situation.
“I said [in March 1983] that in mentioning the Pentcostalists I wasn’t trying to negotiate or strike a bargain,” President
Reagan wrote in An American Life, “ –I was just pointing out that a kindness to those people would make it easier for
us to do something for his government, and we’d never mention it as an exchange or concession. It wasn’t long before
the Pentecostalists were in America.”
1986 On the Eve of the Summit
DIARY ENTRY: Friday, September 25, 1987 I’ve discovered the Soviet Poetess who has been released from the Gulag is living in Chicago so we are making contact to bring about a meeting with Irina Ratushinskaya. That will be in Oct. In 1982, a Russian poet by the name of Irina Ratushinskaya was arrested and charged with “disseminating slanderous
documentation in poetic form.” She was sentenced to seven years in a labor camp, but during the first four years,
President Reagan lobbied for her release. Finally, on the eve of the Reykjavik Summit between President Reagan and
Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986, she was released. “Yes, we are behind barbed wire,” she wrote, “and they have
stripped us of everything they could, they have torn us away from our friends and our families, but unless we
acknowledge this is their right, we remain free.”
In October 1987, she visited President Reagan in the White House and delivered a note congratulating him on his
election. It came from ten women imprisoned in a Soviet Gulag who had documented their hunger strikes in order to
pursue religious freedom. The note is on display at the Reagan Library.
Click here to view the note:
1986 An Infamous List
DIARY ENTRY: October 6, 1986 (A few days before the Reykjavik Summit) Finally Sen. Hecht brought me computerized list of 1,200 Jews who want out of Russia. I’ll take them to Iceland. In the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Jews and Christians had been denied the basic right of human freedom and
were unable to emigrate to the United States or Israel. Senator Chic Hecht (R-NV) presented President Reagan with a
list of 1,200 names who had applied to emigrate from Russia. Senator Hecht wrote, “I reminded the President that the
numbers could reach in the millions, but this would be a start. I used ‘quiet diplomacy’ as only the President, an aide,
and myself were in the Oval Office.”
A week later while meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev in Reykjavik, President Reagan gave the list of 1,200
names and asked for their release. In turn, Gorbachev told President Reagan that neither he nor his government was to
speak about this or distribute any press releases on the matter. President Reagan agreed and within weeks, a trickle of
Soviet Jews and Christians began to leave Russia. Soon, the trickle mushroomed into tens of thousands.
Proclamations
Over the course of 8 years, President Reagan issued over 50 Proclamations in defense of human freedom.
To read a selection, click here:
Farewell Address
When President Reagan left the Oval Office, he seized one last opportunity to emphasize the importance of protecting
human rights. In his Farewell Address, he reminded Americans, “America’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who
must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.” –
Ronald Reagan, January 11, 1989