76-11-6
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National Review
TranscriptIn my latest weekend reading, NATIONAL REVIEW told of some of the comments made by that Soviet pilot who defected and landed his MIG in Japan. He's now in the United States for debriefing. He described the enlisted men's life at the Northern Frontier Post where he was stationed. They are behind barbed wire, for all the world like prisoners, in barracks housing 50 or 60 men to a room. They go months without seeing their families. The suicide rate is high and the desertion rate higher. Penalty for desertion is not a pardon -- you are shot. The Lieutenant is astonished by the amount and quality of food served on American bases and by the fraternizing between officers and enlisted men. He watched crews handling takeoffs and landings and expressed his astonishment as they did it, --QUOTE -- "without ever being given an order and without anyone shouting at them" --UNQUOTE. He said, -- QUOTE -- "If my regiment could see five minutes of what I saw today -- there would be a revolution". -- UNQUOTE. In NATIONAL REVIEW I also learned of a new Russian hero. Well, he actually isn't Russian and you can make up your own mind as to whether you think he is a hero. But he has been awarded the Soviet Union Gold Star which is roughly equivalent to Britain's Victoria Cross, the French Croix de Guerre, and our own Congressional Medal of Honor. You don't get that Gold Star for just being at work on time or not missing a cell meeting. Well, the new hero is a Spaniard by birth and when you start toting up his score he sounds like a pretty ordinary, run-of-the-mill Communist. He wound up in Moscow in 1968 and from there until now has made a living doing some translating, a little editing and lecturing. Nothing there to merit the Soviet Union's highest honor. Before 1968 he was in Prague, Czechoslovakia with a group of Spanish exiles and did nothing that would distinguish him from any of his comrades. We lose him for a few years between 1960 and his arrival in Prague, for he dropped out of sight in Cuba. Prior to that, and for 20 years, he was in a jail in Mexico -- 1940 to 1960. Surely he didn't get the Gold Star for good behavior in a Mexican jail. No, but what did he do to get the 20 years? Now we're getting warm. On August 21, 1940 -- on orders from Joseph Stalin -- he took an alpenstock (that's an ice axe used by mountain climbers) and buried it in the skull of Stalin's great enemy, Leon Trotsky, who was then a refugee in Mexico. Thirty-seven years later he is awarded the Gold Star of the Soviet Union. I remember reading an Air Force General Order during World War II conferring our highest honor on a bomber pilot in the Eighth Air Force. His B-17 had been badly shot up by anti-aircraft fire. The ball turret beneath the belly of the plane had taken a hit. The gunner was wounded but with the turret jammed he couldn't be removed. Limping home across France and out over the channel, the plane was losing altitude at such a rate the Captain had to order the crew to bail out. The kid in the jammed turret realizing he would be left to go down with the plane, cried out in terror. The last man to leave saw the Captain sit down on the floor of the plane. Taking the boy's hand he said, -- QUOTE -- "Never mind, son, we'll ride it down together." -- UNQUOTE. Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously awarded. We give our medals on a different basis. I hope we always will. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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