Presidential Oral HistoryThe Presidential Oral History Program is systematically and comprehensively debriefing the principal figures in the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton, with plans to do the same for future presidents. We are also conducting special projects on important topics in political history, including a six-year oral history on the life and career of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. News and EventsReagan: "Tear Down This Wall," June 12, 1987 From time to time, American Presidents utter a line that captures the very essence of their presidency. John F. Kennedy called a generation of Americans to service in his 1961 inaugural when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you…" George H.W. Bush's post-Gulf War fall from grace was summed up in six words uttered at the 1988 Republican National Convention: "Read my lips, no new taxes!" For Ronald Reagan, his defining moment came at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate in West Germany where he challenged the very symbol of communist oppression, a struggle that consumed a large part of his presidency. Click for more. Oral History Scholar Stephen Knott on the Legacy of the Falklands War The Falklands War was not a seminal event in American foreign policy, as Professor Lawrence Friedman, the official historian of the Falklands Conflict for the British Cabinet, has observed: "an American, talking about the Falklands afterwards, was asked, 'I suppose this was an issue that was a bit on the back burner for you?'; to which he replied, 'Back burner? It wasn’t even on the stove!'" This sentiment was echoed by many members of the Reagan administration during the Miller Center's Falklands Roundtable held in May 2003. Click for more. Presidential Oral History Program Examines Assassination Attempt on Reagan On March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan was the target of an assassination attempt which left him and three others seriously wounded. The Miller Center's Reagan Oral History Project examined this event with each participant that was in the administration at the time. Project excerpts. |