PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN - TYPED QUOTATION SIGNED - HFSID 258354

FROM PRESIDENT REAGAN'S "EVIL EMPIRE" SPEECH PREDICTING THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE
 
RONALD REAGAN. Typed Quotation signed: "Ronald Reagan", 1p, 8½x11. In full: "One of the simple, but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we have seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the communist world." Typed beneath signature: "Speech, British Parliament/June 8, 1982". President Reagan spoke in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster in London. This quotation comes from the middle of his speech: "The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies -- West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam -- it is the democratic countries what are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving." Known as his "evil empire" speech, in this address President Reagan spelled out the critical weaknesses in the Soviet Union and predicted its collapse. Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) had two careers: actor and politician. His first movie was Love is on the Air (1937) and his 53rd and last film was The Killers (1964). In 1965, he wrote his autobiography, Where's the Rest of Me?, a line from his role as Drake McHugh in King's Row (1942). Reagan left his job hosting television's Death Valley Days during the 1965-1966 season, when he entered politics. Elected Governor of California in 1966, he was reelected in 1970. Reagan began his campaign for the presidency and narrowly lost the 1976 Republican nomination to Gerald Ford. He was elected President in 1980 and was reelected in 1984. After leaving office in 1989, he wrote his second autobiography, An American Life. On February 6, 2001, Reagan became just the third U.S. President to reach the age of 90 and the nation's longest living President until Gerald Ford (d. 2006) lived 45 days longer. Lightly creased. Overall, fine condition.