http://wwnet.fi/users/veijone/reagan.txt Ronald Reagan's Faith Note from Bill: The Lord put it on my heart a few years ago, that the main purpose (among a few other) of Ronald Reagan's presidency was to use him to bring down the Iron Curtain so the Gospel could be shared openly within the Soviet Union. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan on Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Conflict: It is good to think of how he did it, because the gifts he brought to resolving the conflict reflected very much who he was as a man. He began with a common-sense conviction that the Soviets were not a people to be contained but a system to be defeated. This put him at odds with the long-held view of the foreign-policy elites in the '60s, '70s and '80s, but Reagan had an old-fashioned sense that Americans could do any good thing if God blessed the effort. Removing expansionary communism from the world stage was a right and good thing, and why would God not smile upon it? In the CBN article excerpt below it was stated, that after he survived an attempted assassination in 1981, President Reagan's deep faith inspired him to commit his presidency to God. "I think he started to think about things differently after that saying, 'My gosh you know, there's other people watching me, God is watching me and He saved my life.' You're talking about the first president ever shot who lived through an assassination attempt and he thanked God for that and he offered his presidency up to God and I think his prayers were answered," said Michael Reagan. * The following articles are also posted at the web site: Please click here ------- Ronald Reagan: He brought Big Government to its knees and stared down the Soviet Union. And the audience loved it - Peggy Noonan Click here for article. ---- Reflections of Reagan - CBN Click here for the article. The following is an excerpt: Over the past few years, faith has become an important issue in presidential campaigns including this one. But what did Reagan really believe in? At the Reagan ranch, it's clear that the former president's faith was genuine. His faith in God was the foundation of who he was, who he hoped to be. It is difficult not to notice the his and her Bibles in the master bedroom. "The Bibles are very appropriate here," said Marc Short of Young America's Foundation. "He was once asked, 'Why is this ranch so special to you?' And he reflected and paused for a minute and said, 'I guess it's the old scriptural line, I look to the hills from whence cometh my strength,' from Psalm 121." After he survived attempted assassination in 1981, President Reagan's deep faith inspired him to commit his presidency to God. "I think he started to think about things differently after that saying, 'My gosh you know, there's other people watching me, God is watching me and He saved my life.' You're talking about the first president ever shot who lived through an assassination attempt and he thanked God for that and he offered his presidency up to God and I think his prayers were answered," said Michael Reagan. President's Reagan's favorite scripture verse is inscribed inside the cover of his Bible. Though today he is stricken with Alzheimer's disease, he would likely feel II Chronicles 7:14 is appropriate for reflection by Americans as they get to know their new president. The verse reads, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." ---- The Personal and Historical Impact of Ronald Reagan Pat Robertson interviews Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson Click here for the article. Excerpt from the interview: PAT ROBERTSON: What about that Berlin Wall. You were having dinner in Berlin, when you were over there on an advance and you met with a 'hausfrau' and you mentioned it and what did she say to you? PETER ROBINSON: I had been told earlier in the day in Berlin by the ranking American diplomat that the president shouldn't make much of the Berlin Wall in his speech. He said they've all gotten used to it. So that evening at dinner with some West Berliners, I asked if it was true and boy did I get a reaction. Including one from our hostess, a lovely middle-aged woman, but she became angry. And she said, 'If this man Gorbachev is serious with his talk of glasnost and peristroika, he can prove it by coming here and getting rid of this wall.' I went back to Washington, adapted her comment, turned it into the line, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' (I) built the speech around it, had a meeting with the president who signaled that passage out and said he especially wanted to deliver it for the sake of the people on the other side, the communist side of the wall. And then Pat, that speech went out to staffing and for three weeks the State Department and National Security Council fought it. You were talking about trouble with the State Department earlier in the hour. Some things don't change. They said it was naïve, it would raise false expectations, it would make the president look like some crude, anti-Communist cowboy. At the end of it all, Ronald Reagan himself insisted on delivering that passage. In the limousine on the way to the wall, that very day, to deliver the speech, he leaned across and slapped his deputy chief of staff Ken Duberstein on the knee and said, 'The boys at State aren't going to like me very much for this, but it's the right thing to do.' PAT ROBERTSON: You've pointed out some speeches that he made. Brilliant speeches. One before the Parliament of England, one at the National Association of Evangelicals -- 'the Evil Empire' -- the one at Pont du Hoc in Normandy, I guess Peggy Noonan wrote that speech, and then this one at the Berlin Wall. They were four defining speeches having to do with the Evil Empire. PETER ROBINSON: That's exactly right. And, by the way, please notice that.(the) 1981 speech at the Houses of Parliament where the president said Communism was destined for the ash heap of history, which was a pretty provocative thing to say in 1981, the Evil Empire speech and that Berlin Wall speech, all three of those the senior staff and the State Department tried to, uh, fought, tried to squelch. It was Ronald Reagan himself who came through. Demonstrates, of course, the importance and the power of his conviction and also the lesson I took from the way he dealt with speeches was that words matter. You don't just use them for effect, you don't just use them to slip by a situation, you use them to stand up and tell the truth. Source: Koenigs Int. News