Word: speech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Next stop is Strasbourg, where Reagan is to deliver the keynote speech on V- E day before the European Parliament. In a lyrical ode to friendship and freedom, he plans to celebrate the survival and triumph of democracy in Western Europe after it was almost snuffed out during World War II. Strasbourg, however, is not without its own petty imbroglios. Reagan was initially invited to lunch by French President Francois Mitterrand, but when the European Parliament's president, Pierre Pflimlin, a longtime opponent of Mitterrand's Socialists, issued Reagan an official counterinvitation, a miffed Mitterrand withdrew...
Even Reagan's fabled mastery of television was failing, at least temporarily, to work its accustomed magic. In a forceful speech to the nation on Wednesday night, the President summoned all his rhetorical resources to appeal for public support of the $52 billion in spending cuts in the fiscal 1986 budget plan. "The stakes are enormous," said Reagan. "Please tell your Senators and Representatives by phone, wire or Mailgram that our future hangs in the balance...
...responded, but not enough to sway the crucial votes immediately. The Republican leaders of the Senate had planned to call for a vote on the compromise budget package they had worked out with the White House on Thursday, to take advantage of the impetus they expected from Reagan's speech. But that day it was the Democrats who dared them to go ahead, while Reagan's G.O.P. allies repeatedly postponed a ballot that they knew they could...
...President, in his budget speech, showed some signs of greater realism. While remaining feisty, he for once made no reference to his re-election, apparently realizing that the mandate argument had worn thin. It has, and so has the first-term description of Reagan as the Teflon President, the man to whom no blunder would stick. Over time even Teflon can be scratched...
...diluted the influence of the Kremlin's Old Guard, which now constitutes less than half of the Politburo membership. He also mildly flouted Kremlin protocol by leapfrogging two of his nominees to full Politburo status without benefit of an interval of nonvoting candidate membership. Finally, in his plenum speech, Gorbachev reaffirmed that the infusion of new blood at the top was part and parcel of his highest priority, the revamping of the Soviet Union's chronically ailing economy. Said he: "Revolutionary changes are needed. What is at issue is the retooling of all sectors of the national economy...