Rep. Gingrich: Text of Special Order on “Freedom’s Future: The Free World and the Soviet Empire”
Given the conversation among Elliott Abrams, @RichLowry, Jeffrey Lord, and others about the March 21, 1986, House special order speech by Rep. Newt Gingrich, I figured I’d read the speech. I posted it below and added paragraph numbers to facilitate discussion. His comments on the need to move from the “Rayburn” political model to a grassroots political model were particularly interesting. See paragraphs 58-60. I started work in the Rayburn House Office Building the year after the speech, in 1987, and was a talk radio producer in 1994, after Gingrich helped build the grassroots model he envisioned — the model that ended 40 years of one-party-rule in the House.
Newt served on the House Administration Committee with my first boss on the Hill. I spoke with him several times while waiting to put him on @Michael Reagan‘s radio program. And I remember briefing him once while he was Speaker Gingrich: I was sent from the basement of the Capitol to the Speaker’s Office to bring him to a meeting with the Congressional Policy Advisory Board (strangely enough, this is Google’s first CPAB hit, dated two or three years after the meeting), and he asked me what the meeting was about. He seemed genuinely thrilled when I let him know that he wasn’t required to make a presentation, replying with something to the effect of, “that’s great. People ask me to talk too much. I like it when I have the chance to just listen.”
That might sound odd from someone who has given so many special orders and speeches over the years, but it would be difficult to fill up so much time with so much substance, such as that below, without doing a lot of listening (and reading and studying and thinking too). I disagree with Abrams’ interpretation of the 1986 speech, but am grateful he brought it to the world’s attention. Those who weren’t politically aware during the era and who haven’t studied the nuances of the 80s won’t get all of it, but Tony Dolan wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that yields perspective about how Reagan had to overrule his staff to implement his own doctrine.
The debate about whether it’s worth comparing individual candidates to Reagan isn’t worth revisiting, but Reagan had his GE speech tours and his personal filing system and Gingrich had his special orders and his insatiable desire to learn. Some commentators say backgrounds like those create “political instincts,” but, reading the speech below, I don’t think Newt would like that language. Instincts are for animals. Thoughtful language (see the Orwell citation in paragraph 38) is for people. Enjoy the speech:
REFERENCE: Vol. 132 No. 36
TITLE: FREEDOM’S FUTURE: THE FREE WORLD AND THE SOVIET EMPIRE
SPEAKER: Mr. GINGRICH; Mr. WEAVER
TEXT: The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Georiga [Mr. Gingrich] is recognized for 60 minutes.
[1] Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, this special order and one other which will follow is on freedom’s future, the free world and the Soviet empire.
[2] I want to focus on the reality of the Soviet empire, the Soviet transnational threat to freedom and security and the necessity for a sophisticated free-world response led by the United States.
[3] There are three propositions to this analysis. First, the reality of the Soviet empire, the Cuban colonial army, and a transnational strategy for tyranny. Second, the need for revolution in American ideas, in American political understanding, in American policies, in American institutions to match on the side of freedom this transnational Soviet imperial threat. Third, the degree to which the Reagan administration as well as the Congress and the American people has failed to understand intellectually the scale of the Soviet transnational threat and has failed to develop a response of sufficient power.
[4] Let me expand: Continue reading ‘Rep. Gingrich: Text of Special Order on “Freedom’s Future: The Free World and the Soviet Empire”’
