PRESIDENT REAGAN/D-DAY AT NORMANDY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505390086-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 86
• Publication Date: June 6, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO IV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
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CBS Morning News
STATION WDVM-TV
CBS Network
DATE June 6, 1984 7:00 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
President Reagan/D-Day At Normandy
DIANE SAWYER: The President is joining Walter Cronkite
now on the beaches at Normandy, and we're going to go there and
join them ourselves.
WALTER CRONKITE: Mr. President, it's quite a day out
here. We're observing the fact that American soldiers can do the
e
impossible, as But represented
on the other hand, atlatteDu Hoc, when rrible cost,thisn't
commanded t to.
it?
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Yes. As I said in my remarks,
225 of them came up those cliffs, and two days later there were
only 90 of them able to take part in combat.
CRONKITE: Mr. President, you know, this war -- World
War II, that is -- was called a popular war, as opposed to the
actions we've had recently, Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, I suppose.
What are the conditions it takes to have a popular war, for heav-
en sakes?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I doubt that any war could be
-- if we really describe it, can be popular. No one wants it.
But here was a case in which the issues of right and wrong were
into war.
so clearly defined and delineated before we ven The got
And then, we didn't choose to pull the trigger. trigger
pulled at us. And we were in a war as of a Sunday morning, De-
cember 7th, in the Pacific.
And I think I'll always remember my first assignment as
a reserve officer called to active duty was at the port of embar-
kation in San Franciso, and it was a job as a liaison officer
loading the convoys for out in the Pacific. And standing at the
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foot of the gangplank one day as they're coming along, full pack
and gear and everything, ready to go up the gangplank, and one of
them -- there was a pause, a hitch in the line. One standing
there, just a youngster,.and I said, "How do you feel?"
"Well," he said, "I don't want to go." He said, "None
of us want to go. But," he said, "we all know the shortest way
home is through Tokyo."
CRONKITE: You know, now we're in a nuclear age. And as
terrible as this war was, is it possible in a nuclear age that we
would have another war that could be restricted to anything as
horrible as this, even?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Walter, I have said and will continue
to say a nuclear war cannot be won. It must never be fought.
And this is why the goal must be to rid the world once and for
all of those weapons.
CRONKITE: You don't think we could fight a strategic
war like this without invoking nuclear weapons.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, this we don't know. But if it
was ever to resort to those weapons -- we did in World War II.
We saw the power deterrence.., All the nations had chemical war-
fare, had gas. But it was never used because everyone had it.
Maybe the same thing would apply with regard to nuclear war. But
why take that chance?
If everybody is having the weapons as a deterrent to the
other, then let's do away with the deterrence.
CRONKITE: You had some remarks, that I don't think you
got a chance to deliver in a foreshortened speech in Ireland, in
which you said that you were optimistic that perhaps we could get
nuclear limitation talks going again with the Soviets. What
gives you cause for that optimism?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I just think common sense. I think
right now the Soviet Union is -- well, there was an article in
The Economist that sort of described it. They're hibernating.
We're so used to thinking that they're always in the midst of
some kind of devious plan. I just don't think they have any
answers right now, and they're sort of hunkered down, trying to
decide.
CRONKITE: Do we have a plan?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Yes. And the plan is to -- we have
maintained contact. We're negotiating other things of mutual
interest to the two countries, making some progress on them. But
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on those talks, my idea of a goal is if we can once start down
the road of achieving reductions in the armaments, I just have to
believe that we'll see the common sense in continuing down the
road and eliminating them.
CRONKITE: Have you had a chance, with your busy sched-
ule on this tour, to catch up with the fact that the Soviets, on
this anniversary, the 40th anniversary of D-Day, are making much
of the fact that they've cited before -- a fact, I mean, by their
[unintelligible], or the fiction -- that we deliberately delayed
this landing by two years in order that the Germans would eat up
the Soviets by attrition, and that we came ashore virtually unop-
posed because of connivance with the Germans? Have you heard
that they were repeating that all over...
?RESIDENT REAGAN: Oh, I know that. As a matter of
fact, recently our ceremony for the funeral of the Unknown Sol-
dier from Vietnam, they referred to that as a militaristic orgy.
[Confusion of voices]
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I wonder sometimes, when they talk
about heated rhetoric coming from me, doesn't anyone listen to
what they're saying?
But how anyone could say that this was an almost unop-
posed landing, we know better. And the evidence is right here
and the survivors, many of them, are right here.
They had not won the war, and we had not delayed for any
reason of that kind. I have some reason for saying that because
my own war service was spent in a unit that was directl_y___unde_r
Air_Cor ss - n e -l Bence, and we had access to all the intelligence
in orma ion -about things, even including this. And there was an
awful lot of war to be fought.
CRONKITE: And as a matter of fact, 40,000 airmen gave
their lives over Europe. I covered the Air Force as a correspon-
dent and I think of that. When you talk about 10,000 dying here
on D-Day, 40,000 died in order to get the Luftwafe out of the
skies before D-Day, or this wouldn't have been possible.
CRONKITE: Let me ask you one more question before you
have to go.
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Speaking of wars and the political campaign, what's your
plan for D-Day against Mondale, Hart, [unintelligible]?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Just tell them what we've done and
what we're going to do, and pretend they're not there.
CRONKITE: Well, you may have to climb a 100-foot cliff,
but I guess you've got your weapons at your ready.
CRONKITE: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
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