WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- While mourners visited former President Ronald Reagan's body, which is lying in state in the Capitol, Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche is asserting that the Strategic Defense Initiative Reagan championed during his administration was actually LaRouche's idea.
"Although we actually met on but one occasion, at Concord, New Hampshire, for a candidates' night, in January 1980, that meeting between us changed world history in ironical ways which are reverberating still today," LaRouche observed while reflecting on the death of America's 40th president.
LaRouche asserts that the meeting in 1980 led to a series of policy meetings between LaRouche and Reagan staffers.
"The most important product of those meetings was my 1982-83 role in conducting back-channel talks with the Soviet government, on behalf of that Presidency," LaRouche said.
LaRouche said that the focus of the meetings was on a proposal he had developed that Reagan adopted and named the "Strategic Defense Initiative."
"That proposal changed the world," LaRouche said.
LaRouche also took the opportunity to clear up what he sees as a confusing point in U.S. history.
"It was the folly of the Soviet government, not threats by the administration of President Reagan, which led to the end of the Soviet system in the way that occurred," LaRouche said.
"On March 23, 1983, the president had made a public offer, which he renewed later, to find a way to escape the system of 'revenge weapons,'" LaRouche explained. "It was the Soviet rejection of the president's offer which brought down the Soviet economy and the break-up of the Soviet Union."
"Had the president's offer been accepted then, during the years which followed, the history of the world would have made a better turn that it did then, better for both the U.S.A. and Russia, a better way toward a better world today," LaRouche said.
LaRouche made these remarks earlier this week after learning about Reagan's death on the same day he was also criticizing his party's standard bearer -- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA).
LaRouche called on Kerry to "show the guts" to support a proposal by House Democrats to hold hearings on Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison scandal which LaRouche said House Republican leaders are preventing from taking place.
"I demand that John Kerry support that complaint, openly. He must stop being wishy-washy. I challenge Kerry to have the guts to support these House Democrats," LaRouche said.
LaRouche has run for the presidency since 1976 and was convicted of a felony after losing a federal fraud and tax evasion case in 1989.
LaRouche has been equally critical of the Bush administration, Kerry, and the Democratic Party.
He has said that Bush is being manipulated by Vice President Dick Cheney; that Kerry is not qualified to be president of the United States; and that the Democratic Party is deliberately trying to sabotage his candidacy.
Copyright © 2004 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
