Walesa Pays Tribute to Reagan’s Legacy

Former Polish President Lech Walesa swept through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Monday, launching a three-week tour of the United States by praising the former American president’s role in the fall of communism.

Poland owes its freedom partly to Reagan, Walesa told a crowd of nearly 400 college students and Ventura County Republican faithful gathered at the library for a daylong conference on “The Reagan Legacy.”

“His policy supporting the freedom movement in Central and Eastern Europe provided us with a very strong backing” for the Solidarity movement that eventually ended Communist rule in Poland, Walesa said through an interpreter.

Walesa, who scribbled autographs and mugged for tourists’ cameras during his visit to the library’s hilltop campus near Simi Valley, also praised Reagan’s devotion to “a few simple rules: human rights, democracy, freedom of speech . . . and his conviction that it is not the people who are there for the sake of the state, but that the state is there for the sake of the citizens.”

Earlier in the day, panels of Reagan scholars, advisors and journalists tried to dissect the eight-year reign of one of America’s most popular presidents.

“60 Minutes” anchor Mike Wallace, in a speech via satellite, recalled Reagan’s skills as “the great communicator.”

Wallace traced Reagan’s career back to the moment the former Screen Actors’ Guild president burst into politics with a galvanizing speech on behalf of Sen. Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid in 1964.

And he cited Reagan’s ability “to restore confidence, to restore pride, to make us believe once again that we were capable of anything.”

But Wallace also noted two darker components of the Reagan legacy--the Iran-Contra affair and a national deficit that had swollen to $2.6 trillion when Reagan left office in 1988.

“Ronald Reagan paid insufficient heed to those left behind in America, and that surprised me, candidly,” Wallace said. “The Reagan years were marked by an apparent insensitivity to the needs of minorities.”

But Wallace concluded: “History will be infinitely kinder to him than that. For he knew who he was, and he knew who we were and are.”

Pundits ranging from veteran TV journalist Sander Vanocur to former Reagan deputy chief of staff Michael K. Deaver touched on Reagan’s passionate beliefs, his sense of humor and the uncanny connection he made with much of the American public.

In a panel discussion on Reagan as an individual, Vanocur told of Reagan’s early years as California governor, when a reporter asked, “What is it people see in you?”

“And he said, ‘Would you laugh if I said they see themselves, and I am one of them?’ ” Vanocur said. “That was the evidence of his political genius.”

Reagan’s personality won him votes and enabled him to cruise through the most difficult of crises, recalled actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who stumped for Reagan in 1976.

“I was impressed by the day-to-day, workmanlike, cheerful, pleasant way he conducted himself,” Zimbalist said. “It was like fresh air coming everywhere.”

But it was Reagan’s battle of wills with what he called “the evil empire” of the Soviet Union, his summits with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and the eventual collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR that dominated Monday’s conference.

Later, Deaver recalled for a panel discussion on Reagan as president how Reagan held back from reacting harshly when Soviet fighters shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet that had strayed into Soviet airspace.

Cabinet advisors suggested everything from moving U.S. fleets into the Pacific to lodging economic sanctions against the Soviets, Deaver said.

“He listened to all this for about an hour and a half,” Deaver said. “And very gently, he said, ‘Gentlemen, we must keep in mind what our long-term goals are with the Soviet Union. We don’t have to do anything. The rest of the world will condemn the Soviets for this.’ ”

In a speech that delighted the audience and closed the conference, Walesa said that Reagan was “favored by the muse” of history.

Walesa referred to a joke that Reagan delivered into a microphone for a sound check in 1983 that eventually was broadcast worldwide: “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Walesa said Monday, “People thought it was unfunny, but I’m of the opposite opinion, that it was not only a good joke, but the words were also prophetic.

“Today, my great wish is that a president of the United States would come to the microphone and announce the establishment of the United States of Europe,” said Walesa. “That would not be a bad joke either.”

Afterward, Walesa told reporters that he will meet with President Clinton on June 3 to discuss the lingering instability in the former Soviet Union.

But Walesa said he did not come to ask the U.S. for specific help or favors.

“I am not an official government representative,” he said. “I’m seeing President Clinton as an old friend.”