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1984 Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom
March 26, 1984
Thank you very much. We're delighted to welcome you to the White House. Over its history this room has been the site of many occasions honoring America's heroes, and today we carry on in that tradition.
During my inaugural address, I noted that those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look. A few months ago, we had a reception on the White House lawn for some of America's latest heroes: the soldiers, sailors, and marines who rescued the American medical students on the island of Grenada. It's a memory that we'll long cherish; seeing those medical students -- some who once had admittedly negative feelings toward the military -- throwing their arms around those brave young men who had rescued them, taking pictures of them, and introducing them to their parents as heroes. All of us can be proud of the courage and dedication of our military personnel in Grenada, in Beirut, wherever they're stationed, domestically or on foreign shores.
This is also a good opportunity to note the heroism of some other Americans who cherish freedom: the people of El Salvador. Yesterday those valiant people braved guerrilla violence and sabotage to do what we take for granted -- cast their votes for President. While the final vote count is not yet in, it looks like the turnout is another victory for freedom over tyranny, of liberty over repression, and courage over intimidation.
We have already heard by phone from so many of our Congressmen who were down there as observers, both Democrat and Republican, and some who in their legislative activities have not looked with too much favor upon what we've been doing. But the calls we're getting back are, all of them, just complete enthusiasm of the heroism they saw there on the part of these people who, in spite of everything, insisted on going to vote.
But these are the very qualities that we're here to honor today in a group of our own heroes -- individuals whose bravery, dedication, and creativity have enormously contributed to our quality of life and the cause of human freedom.
The Medal of Freedom is designed not to honor individuals for single acts of bravery, but instead, to acknowledge lifetime accomplishments that have changed the face and the soul of our country. The people we honor today are people who refused to take the easy way out, and the rest of us are better off for it. They're people who knew the risks and the overwhelming effort that could be required, but were undeterred from their goals. They are people who set standards for themselves and refused to compromise. And they're people who were not afraid to travel in unexplored territory.
By honoring them today, we, as a free people, are thanking them. Choices they made have enriched the lives of free men and women everywhere, and we're grateful.
Now, let me read the citations and present the medals to each recipient. And the first is Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr.
The citation:
As a Member of the United States Senate, one of the country's most powerful and influential citizens, and an individual whose character shines brightly as an example to others, Howard Baker has been a force for responsibility and civility on a generation of Americans. In his almost 20 years of service, he has earned the respect and admiration of his fellow citizens regardless of their political persuasion. As Majority Leader of the Senate, his quiet, cooperative style and keen legislative skills have honored America's finest traditions of enlightened political leadership and statesmanship.
Citation:
As a giant in the world of entertainment, James Cagney has left his mark not only on the film industry but on the hearts of all his fellow Americans. In some 60 years in entertainment, performing on stage and screen, he mastered drama and action adventure, as well as music and dance. One of his most remembered performances, as George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' was a whirlwind singing and dancing film that inspired a Nation at war when it sorely needed a lift in spirit. James Cagney's professional and personal life has brought great credit to him and left unforgettable memories with millions who have followed his career.
Could I add something else? And this didn't have anything to do with the award. As a great star at the same studio where I started, he was never too busy to hold out a hand to a young fellow just trying to get underway.
Now, Mr. John Chambers will accept for his father, the late Mr. Whittaker Chambers.
At a critical moment in our Nation's history, Whittaker Chambers stood alone against the brooding terrors of our age. Consummate intellectual, writer of moving majestic prose, and witness to the truth, he became the focus of a momentous controversy in American history that symbolized our century's epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism, a controversy in which the solitary figure of Whittaker Chambers personified the mystery of human redemption in the face of evil and suffering. As long as humanity speaks of virtue and dreams of freedom, the life and writings of Whittaker Chambers will ennoble and inspire. The words of Arthur Koestler are his epitaph: "The witness is gone; the testimony will stand.''
Leo Cherne :
Although he has never held elected office, Leo Cherne has had more influence on governmental policy than many Members of Congress. Since the late 1930's, Leo Cherne has stepped forward and with brilliance, energy, and moral passion helped this Nation overcome countless challenges. His lifetime devotion to aiding his country and to serving the cause of human freedom, especially through his work on behalf of refugees, reflects the strong and generous character of a man who deserves the respect and gratitude of all Americans.
Dr. Denton Cooley:
In an outstanding professional career, Dr. Denton Cooley has distinguished himself time and again in the field of medicine. As one of this country's leading heart surgeons, he has charted new territory in his search for ways to prolong and enrich human life. His efforts have saved the lives not only of his own patients, but of those of many other doctors who have studied and mastered techniques developed by him.
As a heart surgeon and as a creative, independent thinker, Dr. Denton Cooley is a force for innovation in American medicine.
Ernest Jennings "Tennessee Ernie'' Ford:
Through his musical talents, warm personality, and quick "down-home'' wit Tennessee Ernie Ford won the hearts of the American people. Ford's music, which revealed his character and soul to all who listened, inspired as well as entertained his audiences. His respect for traditional values, his strong faith in God, and his unlimited capacity for human kindness have greatly endeared him to his fellow countrymen.
America is a Nation richer in spirit because of Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Dr. Hector Garcia:
Dr. Hector Garcia's patriotism and community concern exemplify the meaning of good citizenship. His many community-building endeavors included his work as a founder and first National Chairman of the American G.I. Forum, a veterans' organization which has done much to improve the lot of Americans of Mexican descent. Over the years, he has faithfully represented our government on numerous occasions, overseas and domestically. Dr. Hector Garcia is a credit to his family and community, and to all Americans.
Through his efforts, based on a deep belief in traditional American ideals, he has made this a better country.
General Andrew Goodpaster:
During his long service to his country, General Andrew Goodpaster shouldered heavy responsibility and worked tirelessly with the highest professional standards. His organizational and diplomatic skills helped shape the NATO Alliance and develop American military and foreign policy over three decades. As Supreme Allied Commander of the NATO Alliance, Presidential representative, and soldier, General Goodpaster has earned a well-deserved reputation as a thoughtful and diligent public servant. His work has contributed immensely to the security and freedom of his country and to the cause of peace.
Lincoln Kirstein:
Lincoln Kirstein is an author and entrepreneur who has honored and delighted Americans through his enormous contribution to ballet in our country. Through his commitment, two major institutions of American dance, the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, were created and flourished. Developing and fostering appreciation for the arts have always depended on the energy, creativity, and commitment of individual citizens. Lincoln Kirstein stands tall as one of a select and treasured few in the world of American art.
Louis L'Amour:
Through his western novels, Louis L'Amour has played a leading role in shaping our national identity. His writings portrayed the rugged individual and the deep-seated values of those who conquered the American frontier. Starting out from humble beginnings, he has lived a fulfilling and adventurous life. An eminently successful writer, more than 100 million copies of his novels are in print, L'Amour's descriptions of America and Americans have added to our understanding of our past and reaffirmed our potential as an exploring, pioneering, and free people.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale:
With a deep understanding of human behavior and an appreciation for God's role in our lives, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale helped originate a philosophy of happiness. Through the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry and his many books, Dr. Peale became an advocate of the joy of life, helping millions find new meaning in their lives. Few Americans have contributed so much to the personal happiness of their fellow citizens as Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.
Mrs. Jackie Robinson will accept for her late husband, Mr. Jackie Robinson.
As an individual of courage and conviction, and as a skilled and dedicated athlete, Jackie Robinson stood tall among his peers. His courage opened the door of professional sports to all Americans when, in 1947, he became the first black baseball player in the major leagues. He bravely demonstrated to all that skill and sportsmanship, not race or ethnic background, are the qualities by which athletes should be judged. In doing so, he struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom, and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion.
Mr. Gamal el-Sadat will accept for his father, the late President Anwar el-Sadat.
President Anwar el-Sadat, as a soldier, led his country in war, but his greatest acts of courage came in pursuit of peace. He captured the imagination of people everywhere by taking the first great step toward achieving a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. His humanity and sense of responsibility, even now that he is gone, remain a giant force for peace and stability in the world. Anwar el-Sadat was a peacemaker of monumental wisdom and tenderness who will remain forever a hero in the hearts of the American people.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver:
With enormous conviction and unrelenting effort, Eunice Kennedy Shriver has labored on behalf of America's least powerful people, the mentally retarded. Over the last two decades, she has been on the forefront of numerous initiatives on the behalf of the mentally retarded, from creating day camps, to establishing research centers, to the founding of the Special Olympics. Her decency and goodness have touched the lives of many, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver deserves America's praise, gratitude, and love.
Well, that concludes our presentations. And again, I offer my personal congratulations to the recipients. As a representative of the American people, I want to thank each of you for what you've done that has added so much to our lives.
Thank you, and God bless you all.
Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. in the East Room at the White House following a luncheon for the recipients and their guests.
As printed above, the citations follow the texts of the citations which accompanied the medals.
Remarks on Awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Late Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington
June 26, 1984
The President. Well, ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and Mrs. Helen Jackson, thank all of you for coming here today. Won't you please be seated?
We're here to honor Henry "Scoop'' Jackson, who was one of the great Senators in our history and a great patriot who loved freedom first, last, and always.
It's less than a year since his death, but already we can define with confidence the lasting nature of his contribution. Henry Jackson was a protector of the Nation, a protector of its freedoms and values. There are always a few such people in each generation. Let others push each chic new belief or become distracted by the latest fashionable reading of history. The protectors listen and nod and go about seeing to it that the ideals that shaped this nation are allowed to survive and flourish. They defend the permanent against the merely prevalent. They have few illusions.
Henry Jackson understood that there is great good in the world and great evil, too, that there are saints and sinners among us. He had no illusions about totalitarians, but his understanding of the existence of evil didn't sour or dishearten him. He had a great hope and great faith in America. He felt we could do anything. He liked to quote Teddy Roosevelt: ``We see across the dangers the great future, and we rejoice as a giant refreshed . . . the great victories are yet to be won, the greatest deeds yet to be done.''
Scoop came to the Congress in 1941, a year when the locomotive of history seemed wrenched from its tracks. In Europe, the ideals of the West were under siege; in America, isolationists warned against involvement. Scoop watched history unfold. He watched Norway, the country of his immigrant parents, fall to Hitler. He came to see [some] conclusions about the world. And from then until the day he died, he rejected isolationism as an acceptable way for a great democracy to comport itself in the world. This view sprang from the heart of the F.D.R. tradition of foreign policy: We accept our responsibilities in the world; we do not flee them.
Henry Jackson absorbed within himself the three great strains of thought that go to the making of a noble foreign policy: a love of freedom; a will to defend it; and the knowledge that America could not and must not attempt to float along alone, a blissful island of democracy in a sea of totalitarianism.
Scoop Jackson was convinced that there's no place for partisanship in foreign and defense policy. He used to say, ``In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics.'' His sense of bipartisanship was not only natural and complete; it was courageous. He wanted to be President, but I think he must have known that his outspoken ideas on the security of the Nation would deprive him of the chance to be his party's nominee in 1972 and '76. Still, he would not cut his convictions to fit the prevailing style.
I'm deeply proud, as he would have been, to have Jackson Democrats serve in my administration. I'm proud that some of them have found a home here.
Scoop Jackson believed in a strong defense for only one reason: because it would help preserve the peace by deterring military violence. He believed in arms control, because he wanted a more secure world. But he refused to support any arms control initiative that would not, in his judgment, serve the security interests of the Nation and ensure the survival of the West. His command of the facts and his ability to grasp detail were legendary. At congressional hearings, people often learned more from his questions than they did from anyone else's answers.
It was very much like Scoop to see that there was a growing problem in Central America -- and to see that the challenge of protecting freedom and independence there would require the commitment of Democrats and Republicans alike. He conceived the Bipartisan Commission on Central America and became one of its most active leaders. He knew that stable, democratic institutions cannot be achieved in that region without the security that American assistance can provide. He saw the Commission's work completed, and if he were alive today, he would be working tirelessly to get its recommendations accepted by the Congress.
Scoop helped shape national policy on dozens of complex issues -- on strategic planning and arms control, on the Soviet Union and Central America, on human rights and Israel, and the cause of Soviet Jewry.
His support for Israel grew out of his knowledge that political decisions must spring from moral convictions. It wasn't some grand geopolitical abstraction that made him back the creation of Israel; it was seeing the concentration camps firsthand at the end of the war. At Buchenwald he saw the evil, as he said, ``written on the sky,'' and he never forgot.
He said the Jews of Europe must have a homeland. He did everything he could to strengthen the alliance between the United States and Israel, recognizing that we are two great democracies, two great cultures, standing together. Today both nations are safer because of his efforts.
He never stopped speaking out against anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. And he was never afraid to speak out against anti-Semitism at home. And Scoop Jackson just would not be bullied. He conceived and fought for the Jackson amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. There's hardly a soul among the hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews who later found freedom in the West who was not sustained in the struggle to emigrate by the certain knowledge that Scoop was at his side.
Scoop was always at the side of the weak and forgotten. With some people, all you have to do to win their friendship is to be strong and powerful. With Scoop, all you had to do was be vulnerable and alone. And so when Simas Kudirka was in jail in Moscow, it was Scoop who helped mobilize the Congress to demand his release. When Baptists in the Soviet Union were persecuted, it was Scoop who went again and again to the floor of the Senate to plead their cause. When free trade unionists were under attack in Poland, Scoop worked with the American labor movement to help them.
A few years ago, he was invited to visit the Soviet Union. The invitation was withdrawn when he said he could not go without calling on Andrei Sakharov. If Scoop were here today, I know he would speak out on behalf of Sakharov, just as Sakharov, a man of immense courage and humanity, stood up in Moscow and hailed the Jackson amendment as a triumph of ``the freedom loving tradition of the American people.''
Scoop Jackson was a serious man -- not somber or self-important, but steady and solemn. He didn't think much of the cosmetics of politics. He wasn't interested in image. He was a practitioner of the art of politics, and he was a personage in the affairs of the world. But there was no cause too great or too small for his attention.
When he wasn't on the floor of the Senate or talking to the leaders of the world, he was usually in his office on the phone -- consoling a constituent in a moment of grief, tracking down a lost social security check, congratulating an honor student, or helping a small businessman who was caught up in redtape.
The principles which guided his public life guided his private life. By the time he died, dozens of young men and women had been helped through school by a scholarship fund that he established and sustained. No one knew the money came from Scoop, until a change in the financial disclosure laws many years later forced him to 'fess up. He had never told the voters; he'd never even told his own staff.
Other people were embarrassed when the disclosure laws revealed their vanities. Scoop was embarrassed when it revealed his virtues.
One night last September, Scoop worked a long day and went home with a cold. There he fell into the sleep from which he never emerged. The next day, it was as if Washington had changed. Something was missing, some big presence.
A few days later, in a eulogy for Scoop, it was pointed out that there's a room in the Senate where members of the public are greeted. And on the walls of that room are the portraits of five of the greatest U.S. Senators, men chosen by the members of the Senate to reflect the best that chamber ever knew. There's Robert Taft, who, like Scoop, was Mr. Integrity, and LaFollette, who, like Scoop, often swam against the tide. There's Calhoun, who loved the South as Scoop loved the West, and Webster, who tried, like Scoop, to be a force to hold the Nation together, in spite of its differences. And there's Henry Clay, a gifted man, who, like Scoop, would have been a great president.
It happens that there is no appropriate space on the walls of that room for another portrait. So, I'm joining those who would suggest to the majority leader that the Senate make room and commission a portrait so that Scoop Jackson can be with his peers. And when it's all done and in place, I'd be very proud to be among those who would go to the Senate and unveil it, Republicans and Democrats alike, a bipartisan effort in memory of the great bipartisan patriot of our time.
And now I am deeply honored to present to you, Mrs. Helen Jackson, the Medal of Freedom in honor of your husband, Senator Henry Jackson of the State of Washington.
Let me read the citation.
Representative and Senator for more than four decades, Henry Martin Jackson was one of the greatest lawmakers of our century. He helped to build the community of democracies and worked tirelessly to keep it vigorous and secure. He pioneered in the preservation of the Nation's natural heritage, and he embodied integrity and decency in the profession of politics. For those who make freedom their cause Henry Jackson will always inspire honor, courage, and hope.
Mrs. Jackson. Mr. President, I'm proud to accept this great honor the Nation has bestowed on my husband.
I accept this award not only on behalf of Anna Marie, Peter, and myself but also on behalf of all those who worked with Scoop and shared his causes and convictions over the years. As Scoop used to say, ``If you believe in the cause of freedom, then proclaim it, live it and protect it, for humanity's future depends upon it.''
Mr. President, we thank you for today from the bottom of our hearts.
Note: The President spoke at 1:32 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House.
Announcement of the 1984 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients
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Medal History
