Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Address to Women Business Leaders
Becky Norton Dunlop
1985

Thank you for inviting me to address your group.

It is indeed an honor for me to be here representing the President to express to you how much we deeply appreciate your devotion and dedication to the Republican Party and to the principles which President Reagan so effectively represents.

I brought with me tonight a message from the President which I'd like to read at this time.

Those of us who work for the Reagan Administration are grateful to each and every one of you for the part you played in helping to re-elect President Reagan and Vice-President Bush. You participated in a victorious effort that will insure continuation of the policies which have turned our country from the malaise of the Carter years to optimism and hope for the future.

I'd like to share with you some thoughts about serving on the President's White House staff, our national priorities, and an important national resource.

As I think about the White House staff, I remember a story about Will Rogers. He was on a radio show during the war with Germany and was declaring that he had the solution to the problem of the German submarines which were moving around throughout the Atlantic Ocean and sinking our surface vessels. "I believe we should drain the Atlantic Ocean," he said "and then we would find all these submarines on the ocean bottom and capture them." "Well," said the announcer, "that sounds fine but how do you purpose to drain the Atlantic?" Will replied, "I am one who develops innovative ideas and leaves the details to others--and that my friend, is a detail."

Well, we on the White House staff are the detail people. It takes a dedicated team of people to manage all of the actions and events which are conducted by and for the President on a daily basis. Fortunately, we have not been called upon to do anything to match draining the Atlantic.

On the technical side alone, there are computer specialists, telephone servicemen and operators, movers, mail carriers, messengers, and on and on. These people keep the White House operational. There would be gridlock if we did not have them every day performing tasks which no one notices when all is working right.

Then, of course, there are the policy people: those who came with Ronald Reagan and plan to leave when he does. These range from administrators to speechwriters to personnel officers to correspondence specialists to lawyers to policy development staffers. And these are the members of the team who have the responsibility to develop and fine tune the details of the President's programs and pursue the implementation of these programs. Of course, each group has its own responsibility and when we work together the President has successes and when we do not there is no success or limited success.

The President has a staggering job, of course.

Enormous pressures focus on the President:

• There is a great variety of problems and issues to be considered;
• There are competing interests among the citizenry with competing considerations and complexities;
• Many issues must be decided each week and month; and
• There is limited time for decision-making.

Decisions come to the White House from many sources:

• Departments have differing perspectives;
• Actions of one department may have foreign, economic or other ramifications that the President must consider; and
• The President has ideas of his own which he wants departments to consider.

Consequently you have the Cabinet and its policy groups.

The President has just recently announced a reorganization of his Cabinet level policy councils whereby he created the Economic Policy Council and the Domestic Policy Council to advise him on economic and domestic policy issues. In announcing the new system, the President emphasized that this would help clarify responsibility and enhance accountability for formulating and implementing economic and domestic policy. James Baker will serve as Chairman Pro Tempore of the Economic Policy Council and Ed Meese will serve as Chairman Pro Tempore of the Domestic Policy Council.

These two councils along with the National Security Council will serve as the bodies to develop and refine ideas for solving old problems or tackling new ones. As the issues are refined and researched in the working groups of these policy councils they will move toward Presidential decision making.

And this President has a clear decision-making method.

1. He likes, uses, and will continue to use Cabinet government--formally and informally;
2. He favors orderly methods for presenting all sides of an issue and he expects professional staff work from his entire team;
3. He wants to see a range of views
   a. He wants to see all the options;
   b. He wants to understand probable consequences of the decision.
4. He applies a carefully developed political philosophy to issues and problems.

Working on the President's personal staff is a high honor that comes with extraordinary responsibility. And it requires great personal commitment.

But I must add that there are also many memories I have of a personal nature that came about only because I serve on the White House staff:

• Receiving a personal tour of the First Families living quarters conducted by the President;
• Being a par of the cheering White House staff seeing the President off to Camp David after we liberated Grenada at his direction; and
• Having a discussion with him about the five greatest western movies ever made when we were supposed to be discussing personnel in our weekly personnel meeting in the Oval Office.

It is impossible to quantify the enormous reward of working for the greatest President of our lifetime in the greatest country on earth today.

Now let me turn to briefly discuss two of the great challenges facing our country today: Federal Spending and Central America.

As you know, the President worked out a budget with the Senate Republican leaders. This compromise meets four essential criteria:

• Cuts the deficit without stifling growth by raising taxes;
• Preserves safety net protections for the needy;
• Fairly spares no part of the budget-cutting almost $100 billion from defense and about $200 billion from domestic (plus interest) spending; and
• Clearly sets priorities, eliminating or reforming programs that are not needed, not efficient or not affordable.

Congress now faces an historic challenge. Failure to control spending can mean an end to the recovery that began with such strength and hope 29 months ago.

The Congress has recently proved to be a disappointment by refusing to support the President's request for aid to the contras, the freedom fighters of Nicaragua.

But this issue is not dead; it will come before Congress again. As the President has often stated in his comments supporting the freedom fighters, this is an issue critical to U.S. National interests and morally right. I’d like to mention tonight some of the reasons why we should support aid to the contras:

• The Nicaraguan situation is a watershed event for the region. There is a growing trend toward democracy which will continue if Nicaragua moves in this direction. If the Communist leadership of Nicaragua can defy this trend, gain international support, and defy the democratic wave, it will have direct and adverse repercussions for the evolution toward democracy in the entire Latin American region.
• Security interests of the United States demand we not acquiesce in the establishment of a second Cuba, a revolutionary base camp in Central America, a privileged sanctuary for international terrorists, or a Soviet military beachhead on the American mainland.
• Support for the contras raises the costs and makes it harder for Nicaragua to marshal her energies in support of wars of national liberation against Honduras, EI Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. It also prevents Nicaragua from clandestinely infiltrating Sandinista troops into EI Salvador.
• Freedom movement’s worldwide--resisting Soviet-backed puppet regimes in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Angola--are looking to see if America remains steadfast and resolute in her support.
• Continued U.S. support for the freedom fighters is necessary to maintain the morale of democratic forces still inside Nicaragua.
• Support for freedom fighters is essential to ensure that the Brezhnev Doctrine--which declares that all Communist revolutions are irreversible, all Communist regimes are permanent--does not apply to the Americas.
• The United States must not dishonorably abandon men whom we armed, trained, and encouraged to go into battle to recapture their homeland from Communist tyranny.

There is much more that can be said on this issue and I will be pleased to provide more detailed information to any of you who would like it. I do want to mention, however, one major point we cannot overlook:

Tonight or tomorrow when you return home, pull out a world map or a globe. Look at Vietnam. It's far from our shores. One cannot walk from there to here. Much water, oceans, and seas lie between Vietnam and the U.S.A. Now remember back: how many "boat people" left their homeland overrun by Communism to brave the terror of leaky boats, pirates, and rough waters to come to America, the land of the free? Remember how many arrived--and the stories of the many who never arrived.

Then look at Central America, at Nicaragua. Should freedom fail in that country, we have every reason to expect Nicaraguans to flee. They will have no leaky boats, no pirates on the high seas, and no rough waters to brave. It won't be easy, but it will be easier to flee to the USA--the land of the free.

And it will be very difficult if not impossible to assimilate so many Central American refugees into our economy and society.

It would be far better for everyone if freedom-loving Nicaraguans could remain in their homeland, working to make democracy and freedom a reality in their own country and keeping communism contained in this hemisphere.

President Reagan cannot solve the twin problems of the Communism threat in Central American and budget deficits alone. You have all helped before: in 1980; in 1981; in 1984 and we need you again. Each of you should take the responsibility of discussing these issues with your family and friends and contact each of your representatives to express your point of view.

And finally tonight, I want to touch on one more important point: recognizing, preserving, and promoting one of our nation's most valuable resources--you!

You are the women who choose every day to make some contribution to strengthen our country, our community, and our families. You are an integral part of the foundation of our republic. You challenge yourselves, your families, and your friends to greater intellectual achievement. You have made a great impact in our political system, in our businesses, in our churches, and in our educational institutions, and you have done all these things because you had the freedom to choose and you dared to make a difference.

You are the spirit that has made America great again, and I salute you.

Thank you and God bless you.