Reagan Gives Self ‘A’ on Foreign Policy

President Reagan looked back with pride Friday at his eight-year record on foreign policy, citing summit meetings with the Soviet Union and progress on regional conflicts, but he repeatedly asserted that danger lies ahead unless Americans stay militarily strong and “keep our heads” when dealing with adversaries.

In a speech to students and faculty at the University of Virginia, Reagan portrayed his two terms in office as a time during which the United States regained its military might and strengthened its “commitment to world freedom,” thus pressuring the Soviets into bargaining with the West.

“Where we are strong and steadfast, we succeed,” Reagan said, crediting U.S. policy for helping end the Iran-Iraq War and bringing about the dramatic shift in the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Wednesday renounced terrorism and accepted Israel’s right to exist.

The speech, Reagan’s farewell remarks on foreign policy, contrasted sharply in tone with his corresponding address on domestic policy last Tuesday.

Unlike the earlier speech, a contentious one blaming the federal deficit on an “iron triangle” of Congress, media and “special interests,” Reagan’s remarks here were far more conciliatory, although he did blame Congress for trying to “weaken my hand” on upgrading the military.

“The two speeches represent Reagan’s batting averages,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor at the university, who was present for the speech. “His biggest disappointments have been on the domestic side . . . “

When he did criticize what he believes is Congress’ encroachment on the President’s constitutional authority, Reagan did so in a gentler, more mellow way than in the “iron triangle” speech.

Here, amid the rolling hills of central Virginia at the school that Thomas Jefferson founded near his beloved Monticello, Reagan devoted long, soaring passages of his speech to the nation’s third President, hailing his “disposition toward balance, toward symmetry and harmony.”

Vital Qualifications

These qualities are vital in governing, Reagan said, declaring that in the critical area of foreign affairs, Congress and the President “need each other and must work together in common cause with all deference, but within their separate spheres.”

An Administration official called the speech “very realistic, in the sense that it takes note of the accomplishments” during Reagan’s two terms but also notes “there is a lot to be done.”

As he has done in many previous speeches, the President credited his policy of “peace through strength” with improving not only East-West relations but also with laying the foundation for a Soviet troop pullout in Afghanistan, a Vietnam withdrawal in Cambodia and a Cuban withdrawal in Angola.

Reagan called the Cuban agreement to send home 50,000 troops another “reversal of Cuban military imperialism,” in addition to “our rescue of Grenada in 1983.”

The President cited as Administration successes the release of Soviet political prisoners, along with the signing of the historic Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty that eliminates an entire class of U.S. and Soviet missiles, and claimed “progress” in efforts to ban chemical weapons and on nuclear-testing agreements.

At one point, Reagan graciously credited Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for his recent troop-reduction pledge, saying the move to cut 500,000 troops was “most welcome and appreciated.” But, in the next breath, Reagan added, “It is important to remember this is a part of and the result of a larger disarmament process set in motion several years ago.”

The Soviet troop reduction in Europe still will leave the Soviet Union with “a preponderance of power” on the Continent, Reagan said, calling this “an asymmetry that offends our Jeffersonian senses and endangers our future.”

That was one of many times that the President used a form of the word danger in the speech, an address characterized by a tone of duality, as he lauded his record but lamented the prospect of an America that softens too much toward the Soviets or any other adversary.

As he leaves office, one foreign-policy failure continues to disturb Reagan--his inability to fund the Contras in their effort to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.