The speech that changed the world
Fifty years ago this week, Ronald Reagan lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford by 117 votes. With nothing prepared, he gave a speech that launched his political legacy. The 1976 Republican National Convention was a United States political convention of the Republican Party that met from August 16 to August 19, 1976, to select the party’s nominees for President of the United States and vice president. Held in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, the Republican National Convention nominated President Gerald Ford for a full term, but only after narrowly defeating a strong challenge from former governor of California Ronald Reagan.
The convention nominated U.S. Senator Bob Dole from Kansas for vice president over incumbent Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who did not seek nomination for a full term. The keynote address was delivered by Howard Baker, then a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Other notable speakers included Minnesota Representative Al Quie, retired Lieutenant Colonel and former Vietnam War prisoner of war Raymond Schrump, former Democratic Texas Governor John Connally, Providence, Rhode Island mayor Vincent Cianci, and Michigan Senator Robert P. Griffin. It was the last national convention by either of the two major parties to feature a seriously contested nomination between candidates.
Going into the convention, Ford had won more primary delegates than Reagan, and also won a plurality in the popular vote. However, Ford did not have enough delegates to secure the nomination (1,130 delegates were needed to win the presidential nomination), and as the convention opened both candidates were seen as still having a chance to win. Because of this, both Ford and Reagan arrived in Kansas City before the convention opened to woo the remaining uncommitted delegates in an effort to secure the nomination.
Reagan benefited from his highly committed delegates, notably “Reagan’s Raiders” of the Texas delegation. They and other conservative Western and Southern delegates particularly faulted the Ford Administration’s foreign policy of détente towards the Soviet Union, criticizing his signing of the Helsinki Accords and indirectly blaming him for the April 1975 Fall of Saigon. The pro-Reagan Texas delegates worked hard to persuade delegates from other states to support Reagan.
Ford, meanwhile, used all of the perks and patronage of the presidency to win over wavering delegates, including trips aboard Air Force One and personal meetings with Ford himself. White House Chief of Staff Dick Cheney proved to be an important figure in working to build support among those state delegations on the fence between Ford and Reagan, including the Mississippi delegation. White House political advisor Harry Dent also played a central role in helping President Ford work with the state delegations, who met with Ford and his aides in a presidential office set up on-site at the convention in Kansas City.
Headlines during the Republican convention in Kansas City hinted at the still-simmering debates within the rank-and-file of the Republicans as to whether or not a new party might be formed out of the weaknesses of the Republicans. “Conservatives Seek a New Party if Reagan Loses,” The Chicago Tribune’s Wednesday, August 18, 1976, headlines told readers during the Kansas City convention, which quoted both White House aides as well as critics in the Republican Party who debated the possibility of a new party emerging out of that year’s division in the Republican ranks. Wednesday, August 18, 1976, saw the uncommitted delegates break on the 1st ballot for President Gerald Ford, who won the nomination on the 1st roll call of delegates by a vote of 1,187-1,070.
Reagan had promised, if nominated, to name Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate, in a bid to attract liberals and centrists in the party. This move backfired, however, as many conservatives such as North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms were infuriated by Reagan’s choice of the liberal Schweiker, while few moderate delegates switched to Reagan. Helms promptly began a movement to draft Conservative Senator James L. Buckley of New York as the presidential nominee.
The key vote of the convention occurred when Reagan’s managers proposed rules change that would have required Ford to publicly announce his running mate before the presidential balloting. Reagan’s managers hoped that when Ford announced his choice for vice president, it would anger one of the two factions of the party and thus help Reagan. Ford’s supporters derisively described the proposed rules change as the misery loves company amendment. The proposed rules change was defeated by a vote of 1180 to 1069, and Ford gained the momentum he needed to win the presidential nomination. The balloting was still close, however, as Ford won with 1187 votes to 1070 votes for Reagan.
There was no scheduled time slot for the runner-up to deliver a formal concession speech; however, when Ford and Reagan met on the dais after Ford’s acceptance speech, the president insisted that the former governor accompany him to the podium to deliver a few remarks.
Reagan gave an eloquent and stirring speech that overshadowed Ford’s own acceptance address, despite being little more than five minutes long. Some delegates later stated that they left the convention wondering if they had voted for the wrong candidate. A contemporary media account stated that if a motion to reconsider the nomination had been in order, it might have passed. Ford and Dole went on to lose to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in the 1976 election. Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 election to become president, and won again in 1984, beating Democratic challenger Mondale. Dole ran for president in 1980, 1988, and 1996, gaining the nomination the last time, but losing to Bill Clinton by a large margin.
While speaking to the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Reagan asked a powerful question: What would people of the future think if they opened a time capsule in 100 years? Would they believe Americans had met the challenges of the moment?
Reagan’s speech came at the culmination of a close-fought campaign against incumbent president Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination. Ford, a long-serving Michigan congressman, had stepped in to become vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew had to resign because of a bribery scandal dating back to his time as governor of Maryland. Ford then ascended to the presidency when Richard Nixon himself resigned the next year due to the Watergate scandal. This meant that while Ford was the incumbent, Reagan, who had been governor of California and had unsuccessfully run for the GOP presidential nomination against Nixon in 1968, felt that he, not Ford, was the next in line.
Ford defeated Reagan in the New Hampshire primary and then ran off a string of victories to build a big early lead. But Reagan fought back with a victory in North Carolina and picked up the momentum. Going into the August convention, the candidates were neck and neck; Ford had a slight lead in delegates but not the necessary majority. The 1976 convention would be the last Republican convention with the contest undecided going in.
Reagan had run a very bitter campaign against Ford and did not expect to give any sort of speech at the convention. The two candidates had met after the ballot and agreed that Reagan would not appear when Ford accepted the nomination. According to senior Reagan aide Charlie Black, “Ford asked Reagan to speak to the convention, and Reagan said, ‘No. You’re going to win. It’s your night. It’s your show.’”
The Reagan team thought they were off the hook on the convention’s big night. Black, his wife, and Reagan’s daughter Maureen were all having a drink at a bar across the street and not even in the convention hall. They were watching on TV as Ford ended his acceptance speech with an unexpected invite to Reagan, saying, “Hey, Ronnie, bring your lovely wife Nancy down and maybe say a few words to the convention.”
The unexpected events meant that Reagan would give one of his most important and memorable speeches with almost no preparation. He said that he’d been invited to write a letter for a time capsule that would be opened in Los Angeles in 2076, at America’s tercentenary.
He explained that he thought the assignment would be easy but soon realized the challenge. As Reagan saw it, the domestic problems of the day, as important as they were, would be subsumed by other issues. The existential issue that the people of 2076 would be looking back to was whether America would have survived its struggle against Soviet communism in the Cold War. As Reagan put it, “And suddenly it dawned on me; those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles were fired. They will know whether we met our challenge.” He wondered: “Will they look back with appreciation and say, ‘Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom? Who kept us now a hundred years later free? Who kept our world from nuclear destruction?’ ”
After posing these important questions, Reagan finished with a resounding conclusion. He told those assembled in the hall that “This is our challenge” and that “We must go forth from here united, determined. And what a great general said a few years ago is true: There is no substitute for victory.”
The speech was only 771 words, and lasted less than six minutes, but it caused a sensation. Unfortunately for Ford, the crowd might have loved Reagan a little too much. There was a sentiment among the delegates that they had “nominated the wrong man.” Zorine Shirley, a volunteer with Ford’s youth group “The Presidentials,” recalls that “I don’t really remember questioning if Ford was the right man exactly beforehand, but Reagan’s speech was just one of those that caught your breath.” Ford had erred in insisting that Reagan speak, as his remarks clearly upstaged the nominee’s. Roger Stone, then a Youth for Reagan activist, said the speech was “the defining moment of the convention.”
We can never know if Reagan would have beaten Jimmy Carter that fall, but his upstaging of Ford at the Republican convention set the stage for his next act. Ford’s political career was over after his 1976 loss, but Reagan’s was not. The Gipper returned in 1980, defeated Carter, and took up the challenge he articulated, winning the Cold War.
Today, we are halfway into Reagan’s 50-year challenge. We made it through this first half, in large part due to Reagan’s courage and resolve. As he told his National Security Adviser Richard Allen, his strategy for taking on the Soviet Union was simple: “We win. They lose.” Reagan put his trust in freedom, unleashed the American economy, and defeated Soviet tyranny. America won the battle against Soviet totalitarianism, but the fight to safeguard liberty and civilization continues. With 50 years left before America’s tercentenary, the questions Reagan asked will challenge every generation. Will we continue to carry the message of freedom to the world? Will we unite to prevent terrorists and rogue states from getting nuclear weapons and destroying the civilized world? Will democratic nations under the American umbrella outlast the coalition of autocracies that reject individual liberty? Ronald Reagan may no longer be with us, but his message endures: There is no substitute for victory. The most important element is freedom and that is also the path to success, prosperity and happiness.
Here is the Reagan speech that change the world:
Mr. President, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President to be, the distinguished guests here and you ladies and gentlemen:
I am going to say fellow Republicans here, but those who are watching from a distance, all of those millions of Democrats and independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally and which I believe we can give them.
Mr. President, before you arrived tonight, these wonderful people here, when we came in, gave Nancy and myself a welcome. And that, plus this, plus your kindness and generosity in honoring us by bringing use down here, will give us a memory that will live in our hearts forever.
Watching on television these last few nights, and I’ve seen you also with the warmth that you greeted Nancy, and you also filled my heart with joy when you did that.
May I just say some words. There are cynics who say that a party platform is something that no one bothers to read and it doesn’t very often amount to much.
Whether it is different this time than it has ever been before, I believe the Republican Party has a platform that a banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pale pastel.
We have just heard a call to arms based on that platform. And a call to arms to really be successful in communicating and reveal to the American people the difference between this platform and the platform of the opposing party, which is nothing but a revamped and a reissue and a running of a late, late show of the thing that we’ve been hearing from them for the last 40 years.
If I could just take a moment, I had an assignment the other day. Someone asked me to write a letter for time capsule that is going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now, on our Tricentennial.
It sounded like an easy assignment? They suggested I write something about the problems and issues of the day. And I said I could do so, riding down the coast in an automobile, looking at the blue Pacific out on one side and the Santa Ines Mountains on the other, and I couldn’t help but wonder if was going to be that beautiful a hundred years from now as it was on that summer day.
Then, as I tried to write, let your own minds turn to that task. You’re going to write for people a hundred years from now who know all about us. We know nothing about them We don’t know what kind of a world they’ll be living in.
And suddenly, thought to myself as I write of the problems, they’ll be the domestic problems of which the President spoke here tonight; the challenges confronting us; the erosion of freedom that has taken place under Democrat rule in this country; the invasion of private rights; the controls and restrictions on the vitality of the great free economy that we enjoy. These are our challenges that we must meet.
And then again there is that challenge of which he spoke, that. we live in world in which the great powers have poised and aimed at each other horrible missiles of destruction, nuclear weapons that can in a matter of minutes arrive in each other’s country and destroy virtually the civilized world we live in.
And suddenly it dawned on me, those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles were fired. They. will know whether we met our challenge.
Whether they had the freedom that we have known up until now, will depend on what we do here. Will they look back with appreciation and say, thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom; who kept us now a hundred years later free; who kept our world from nuclear destruction? And we fail, they probably won’t get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedom and they won’t be allowed to talk of that or read of it.
This Is our challenge. And this is why here in this hall tonight. Better than we’ve ever done before, we’ve got to quit talking to each other and about Inch other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we’ve ever been. But we cry the message they’re waiting for.
We must go forth from here united, determined, that what a great general said a few years ago is true: There is no substitute for victory.