8 Ronald Reagan Quotes on Diplomacy

Ronald Reagan quotes on diplomacy

4. If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be now. Appeasement is not the answer.

47. One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.

90. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

92. Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, 'What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?'

122. Trust, but Verify.

130. At home his vision and leadership restored national self-confidence and brought some significant changes to U.S. politics while abroad the negotiation of arms control agreements in his second term and his statesman-like pursuit of more stable relations with the Soviet Union helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

135. The dialogue that President Reagan and I started was difficult. To reach agreement, particularly on arms control and security, we had to overcome mistrust and the barriers of numerous problems and prejudices. I don't know whether we would have been able to agree and to insist on the implementation of our agreements with a different person at the helm of American government. True, Reagan was a man of the right. But, while adhering to his convictions, with which one could agree or disagree, he was not dogmatic; he was looking for negotiations and cooperation. And this was the most important thing to me: he had the trust of the American people.

148. His commitment to overcoming the East-West conflict and his vision of a free and united Europe helped pave the way for those developments that ultimately enabled Germany also to regain its unity.