PRESIDENT REAGAN TO BE HONORED AT ANC-WR BANQUET
armradio.am
10.09.2008 10:49
The Armenian National Committee-Western Region (ANC-WR) will be
honoring President Ronald Reagan with the Woodrow Wilson Presidential
Award at the organization’s annual banquet on October 12, 2008 at
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
"President Ronald Reagan was the last President to refer to the
Armenian Genocide properly," stated ANC-WR Annual Banquet Chairwoman
Aida Dimejian.
"This year’s banquet will honor those words and the statement President
Reagan made. As a community we shall look with an eager eye to the
future where Turkish intimidation and threats will not bully American
leaders," she added.
Ronald Reagan began his years in politics as a close friend and
supporter of the Armenian American community. As California Governor
from 1966 through 1974, Reagan reached out to Armenian Americans and
joined in their annual commemorations of the Armenian Genocide. Most
notably, in 1969, Reagan joined His Holiness Khoren I, Catholicos
of the Great House of Cilicia, a host of state and local dignitaries
and over 10,000 Armenian Americans at the Armenian Genocide Memorial
in Montebello, where he gave a rousing 15-minute speech honoring the
victims of that crime against humanity. "I am proud and appreciate this
opportunity to participate in this event," said Gov. Reagan. "Today,
I humbly bow in memory of the Armenian m artyrs, who died in the name
of freedom at the hands of Turkish perpetrators of Genocide."
Following his election to the presidency in 1980, Reagan distinguished
himself as the last U.S. President to properly acknowledge the Armenian
Genocide as "genocide." In Proclamation 4838, issued on April 22,
1981, to proclaim April 26-May 3 as "Days of Remembrance of Victims of
Holocaust," Reagan stated, "Like the genocide of the Armenians before
it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it and like too
many other such persecutions of too many other peoples–the lessons
of the Holocaust must never be forgotten." Later in his first term,
the Reagan Administration, at the urging of Secretary of State George
Schultz and Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, retreated from this
stand and opposed successive Armenian Genocide Resolutions in 1985
and 1987.
In the last days of his second term, President Reagan led a U.S. effort
to help the victims of the devastating December 7th, 1988 earthquake in
Armenia. Reversing a 40-year standing policy that lasted throughout the
Cold War, President Reagan airlifted several planeloads of humanitarian
assistance to Soviet Armenia within weeks of the tragedy. In his
December 25th radio address to the American people, Reagan stated
that, in the time of tragedy, "the real differences that divide us
and will continue to divide us fall away." He went on to note the
tremendous outpouring of U.S. assistance in light of the earthquake
in Armenia. "From the United States the response has been staggering,"
he said.