prepared for delivery at the state funeral of the late U.S. president
Ronald Reagan:
In the Spring of 1987 President Reagan and I were driven into a
large hangar at the Ottawa Airport, to await the arrival of Mrs.
Reagan and my wife, Mila, prior to departure ceremonies for their
return to Washington. We were alone except for the security details.
President Reagan's visit had been important, demanding and
successful. Our discussions reflected the international agenda of the
times: the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union and the missile
deployment by NATO; pressures in the Warsaw Pact, challenges
resulting from the Berlin Wall and the ongoing separation of
Germany; and bilateral and hemispheric free trade.
President Reagan had spoken to Parliament, handled complex files
with skill and good humour -- strongly impressing his Canadian hosts
-- and here we were, waiting for our wives.
When their car drove in a moment later, out stepped Nancy and Mila
-- looking like a million bucks. As they headed towards us, President
Reagan beamed, threw his arm around my shoulder and said with a
grin: "You know, Brian, for two Irishmen we sure married up!"
In that visit, in that moment, one saw the quintessential Ronald
Reagan -- the leader we respected, the neighbour we admired and
the friend we loved -- a President of the United States of America
whose truly remarkable life we celebrate in this great cathedral today.
Presidents and Prime ministers everywhere sometimes wonder how
history will deal with them. Some even evince a touch of the
insecurity of Thomas d'Arcy McGee, an Irish immigrant to Canada,
who became a Father of our Confederation. In one of his poems,
McGee, thinking of his birth place, wrote poignantly:
"Am I remembered in Erin
I charge you, speak me true
Has my name a sound, a meaning
In the scenes my boyhood knew."
Ronald Reagan will not have to worry about Erin because they
remember him well and affectionately there. Indeed they do: from
Erin to Estonia, from Maryland to Madagascar, from Montreal to
Monterey. Ronald Reagan does not enter history tentatively -- he
does so with certainty and panache. At home and on the world
stage, his were not the pallid etchings of a timorous politician. They
were the bold strokes of a confident and accomplished leader.
Some in the West during the early '80s believed communism and
democracy were equally valid and viable. This was the school of
"moral equivalence." In contrast, Ronald Reagan saw Soviet
communism as a menace to be confronted in the genuine belief that
its squalid underpinnings would fall swiftly to the gathering winds of
freedom. Provided, as he said, that NATO and the western
industrialized democracies stood firm and united. They did. And we
know now who was right.
Ronald Reagan was a President who inspired his nation and
transformed the world. He possessed a rare and prized gift called
leadership -- that ineffable, and sometimes magical quality that sets
some men and women apart so that millions will follow them as they
conjure up grand visions and invite their countrymen to dream big
and exciting dreams.
I always thought that President Reagan's understanding of the
nobility of the Presidency coincided with the American dream. One
day President Mitterrand, in referring to President Reagan, said: "Il a
vraiment la notion de l'Etat." Rough translation: "He really has a
sense of the State about him." The translation does not fully capture
the profundity of the observation: what President Mitterrand meant
was that there is a vast difference between the job of President and
the role of President.
Ronald Reagan fulfilled both with elegance and ease, embodying
himself that unusual alchemy of history, tradition, achievement,
inspirational conduct and national pride that define the special role
the President of the United States must assume at home and around
the world. "La notion de l'Etat" -- no one understood it better than
Ronald Reagan and no one could more eloquently summon his
nation to high purpose or bring forth the majesty of the Presidency
and make it glow, better than the man who saw his country as a
"shining city on a hill."
May our common future and that of our great nations be guided by
wise men and women who will remember always the golden
achievements of the Reagan era and the success that can be theirs
if the values of freedom and democracy are preserved, unsullied
and undiminished, until the unfolding decades remember little else.
I have been blessed to have had a friend like Ronald Reagan. I am
grateful that our paths crossed and that our lives touched. I shall
always remember him with deep admiration and affection and I shall
always feel honoured by the journey we travelled together in search
of better and more peaceful tomorrows for all God's children,
everywhere.
And so, in the presence of his beloved and indispensable Nancy, his
children, friends and the American people he so deeply revered, I
say "au revoir" today to a gifted leader, historic President and
gracious human being. And I do so with a line from Yeats who wrote:
"Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say -- my glory
was that I had such friends."
