Interesting draft of a Veteran's Day speech by Ronald Reagan, totaling 12 pages (including two handwritten pages, a photocopy of a handwritten page, and the remainder hand-corrected typed pages, plus three separate typed sections with amendments to the draft), 8.5 x 11, no date but circa 1967. Reagan evaluates the history of the United States' involvement in noble wars, and supports continued action in Vietnam. Throughout the typed sections, he makes frequent handwritten additions and subtractions, striking through and rewriting numerous lines and phrases. Reagan's speech begins, in small part: "Some of us here remember this day as one named in observance of the silencing of guns in a war that was fought to end all wars and to make the world safe for democracy. I know that many of you gathered here must be harking back in memory to some who can't be with you—some you knew only as boys, but who were men in the price they paid for a cause. Now this day has been renamed because other Americans have died, and died for noble causes. Twenty-odd years after that war to end all wars the sons of the doughboy were G.I.'s in World War II, and they fought for four freedoms. They created an organization to end wars, and we've known very little peace since. They and their younger brothers and even their sons fought again in Korea, and today another generation of young Americans is dying in Viet Nam." He continues: "Armistice Day is not being honored in Viet Nam. The set of enemies who confront Americans in Southeast Asia are half a world removed in space—and perhaps even a whole century removed in time—from the collection of enemies whom we faced in that war to end all wars in Europe half a century ago. And if we are to believe the more pessimistic political scientists, the war which we fight now in Asia, is one in which our enemy will never accept an armistice. He will fight on and on, we are told, until the United States gives up and withdraws in failure. What about the solemn lessons that Americans were supposed to have learned from all the wars, great and small, which they have fought through the past half a century?" The speech concludes with a stirring string of questions, all penned in Reagan's hand: "Isn't it time that we admitted we are in V.N. because our Nat. interest demands that we take a stand there now so we won't have to take a stand later on our own beaches. Isn't it time that we either win this war or tell the Am. people why we can't. Isn't it time to recognize the great immorality of sending our neighbors sons to die with the hope that we can do so without angering the enemy too much?…The war in Viet Nam must be fought through to victory—meaning, 1st an end to No. V. N. Aggression & 2nd an honorable & safe peace for our So. V. N. neighbors. We have been patient long enough & our patience wears thin. This is the way to peace & it's a way in keeping with our basic principles." In overall fine condition, with toned tape remnants to a few areas. An important speech by Ronald Reagan, outlining his closely held American values and explicating his position on the Vietnam War during his early days as governor of California.
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