Helen Thomas Makes Historic Visit to Falls Church as Guest of News-Press

Helen Thomas, among America's best known and most respected journalists, delivered a sharp critique of the current Bush administration in remarks at the Falls Church News-Press' annual summer social Thursday at the News-Press office.

A crowd of over 200 crushed into in the small church sanctuary down the hall from the News-Press where the event was centered, the largest attendance of any of the events held annually in July since 1991.

Having covered every U.S. president as a White House correspondent since 1961, Thomas gave thumb nail sketches of them all, but of the current administration, which she called "the most conservative in decades," she said, "To preemptively attack Iraq was a sorry chapter in our history."

She recalled Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson telling those on trial at Nuremburg after World War II that they were being tried not because they lost the war, but because they started it. She quoted President John F. Kennedy speaking at American University saying, "America? America doesn't start wars. We want a world where the weak are secure and the strong are just."

Now, she said, "We are despised throughout the world for our muscular foreign policy and because we lost our halo, the greatness of our country that others aspired to."

Almost 150 copies of Thomas' books, Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President, and Front Row at the White House, were sold by a field team from Border's Books at the event, copies of which Thomas patiently autographed until 10 p.m.

The event was catered generously by Ledo Pizza Restaurant & Pub at Pimmit Hills.

Among the dignitaries present at the event were Falls Church Mayor Dan Gardner, City Council members Lindy Hockenberry and David Snyder and new Falls Church School Superintendent Lois Berlin.

The following is the text of the remarks delivered by Helen Thomas at the News-Press Thursday, July 22, 2204:

Good Evening;

I am honored to be here at the invitation of the Falls Church News-Press and I know I will be speaking to an audience too often accused of a beltway mentality—whatever that means.

Actually, I do not believe we are unaware of what is happening beyond Washington. In fact, it often seems the world is too much with us.

Our outreach is global.

Everything comes here and as a reporter I have to say that everything comes to the White House from ticky tack to war and peace.

Right now we are preoccupied with the November presidential elections with the Democratic convention coming up next week and the Republican conclave in a month. The tickets are decided so what is all the shouting about? Well, plenty. I believe that Senator John Kerry, the expected Democratic presidential candidate, still has to define himself. He is famous only because he went to Vietnam, got Medals and came home and opposed the war where we destroyed villages to save them. Unfortunately, he voted for the war against Iraq with little thought of the reasons or the consequences-and like most politicians fear that he would be labeled unpatriotic if he opposed the folly of it all.

Too bad.

But then we have a president who managed to skip Vietnam although it was his era, who said he wanted to be known as a “War President,” and he is.

But suddenly on the way to the forum, or was it on the road to Damascus? He has decided to permit the word peace to enter his lexicon for the fist time in his presidency. He now says he wants to be known as a “Peace President.”

Maybe he has learned that peace sells and the war he was determined to undertake has turned out to be a first class debacle.

All the warning in the run up to the war proved to be false; no weapons, not ties to 9/11, Al Qaeda; no imminent threat. And now we have 900 Americans dead, thousands wounded and maimed for life, thousands of Iraqis dead, the human cost and the tab on the national treasury is tremendous and the killing goes on every day, with an increase of enemies.

Both the president and Britain’s prime minister say it was worth it all to get one man. Of course the U.S. expects much more: access to Iraqi oil, big business and permanent military bases, a foothold in the Middle East, the neoconservatives agenda.

I was against the war before and even after Secretary Powell’s spellbinding tour de force two hour presentation of the horrific–non existent–Saddam Hussein arsenal. He laid his prestige on the line and became the pied piper for the American people to attack Iraq.

Since then he has backtracked every inch of the way.

Well, no one’s perfect.

Right. We all make mistakes. Maybe Mr. Shock and Awe, Donald Rumsfeld, may be feeling some regrets, maybe.

After all, he did say that the Iraqis were very grateful out bombs were precise.

And then there are those torture memos he approved which has shamed us all before the world.

I did think it was right to go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Bin Laden. But to preemptively attack Iraq was a sorry chapter in our history. We don’t start wars without provocation. Do we?

When World War II ended, President Roosevelt sent Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to Nuremberg to be our chief prosecutor at the trials of the war criminals.

During their trial the Nazi generals told Jackson, “We’re on trial because we lost the war.” “No,” Jackson said. “You are on trial because you started the war.”

When the Cuban Missile Crisis was over and both Kennedy and Kruschev stepped back from the brink and decided to save the world, both had known war.

Kennedy went to American University and he said, “America. America doesn’t start wars. We want a world where the weak are secure and the strong are just.”

What I am saying tonight is that somehow we have to recover our honor. Our ideals. Our humanity.

We are despised throughout the world for our muscular foreign policy and more because we lost our halo; the greatness of our country that others aspired to. The ideals of democracy so eloquently asserted by the founding fathers in Virginia.

In that idealistic world I was speaking about, I’d also like to see some leaders take the responsibility and the blame for leading us down the primrose path.

Whatever happened to Truman’s depiction of the presidency, “The buck stops here.”

All we have seen is buck passing at the highest level.

It’s interesting about investigating committees and commissions today. They see no evil- no one is to blame. It’s the institution that’s at fault.

So the Senate Intelligence panel found the CIA falsely clocking Iraq’s ability, but no pressure from the White House to slant the report. And now 9/11! No one is at fault for the misreading of the clues, it was just a lack of imagination on the part of the leaders, the commission said.

As you might have guessed I am an unreconstructed liberal despite the conscious effort of the GOP presidents to demonize the word. I do believe we are our brother’s keeper and no one in this land of wealth should starve, lack for medicine or an education. And I believe with Lincoln that government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves.

Now I think I should lighten up-to put it mildly.

I came to Washington after college, determined to be a newspaperwoman. My parents never told me that it was a man’s world and such ambitions were far-fetched. Liz Carpenter, who had just graduated from the University of Texas and later became a Texas news reporter and a great press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson, hit Washington about the same time. Both of us were knocking on doors at the National Press building.

Liz, who was always on the plump side, ran out of money a couple of days before I did and wired her brother; Please send me $200 or I’m going to have to sell my body. He wired back, “Sell it by the pound.” But he did send the money.

I thought I’d give you my take on the nine presidents I’ve covered:

• John F. Kennedy, eyes on the stars, inspired, created the Peace Corps; signed the first nuclear test ban treaty, said we were going to land men on the moon in a decade, we did; he made mistakes and learned from them.

• Lyndon B. Johnson, the can-do president. In his first two years in office, he had phenomenal success. He got through Congress, Medicare, The Civil Rights Bill, voting rights for blacks, federal aid to education at all levels from head start through college, child and maternal health legislation, public housing, national parks, among the first environmental laws.

But Vietnam was his denouement. Soon after he became president following the tragic death of Kennedy, a group of his southern cronies in the Senate where he had been majority leader came to see Johnson and said, “What is this Lyndon, when you were in the Senate you were one of us, what is this civil rights business?” And he replied, “I’m president now, president of all people.”

Johnson knew where all the bodies were buried and he knew every man’s price on Capitol Hill. Like most presidents, Johnson has a stable of speechwriters. One day he asked that a certain speech be prepared and a speechwriter brought him the first draft; Johnson looked at it and said, “Aristotle? Aristotle? The people I’m going to talk to don’t know who Aristotle is.” He grabbed a pen, scratched out Aristotle and scribbled in, “As my dear old daddy used to say.”

• Richard Nixon always had two roads to go and he always took the wrong road. He did make the breakthrough trip to China, opening relations with the mainland after a 20 year hiatus. But the Watergate scandal did him in and he became the first president in American history to be forced to resign.

• Gerald Ford who succeeded Nixon told us the long national nightmare was over. He stabilized the country and restored respect for the White House during his brief presidency.

• Jimmy Carter put human rights at the centerpiece of his foreign policy. He warned nations that if they continued to torture political prisoners we would cut off aid. He has now won the Nobel Peace Prize which he richly deserves.

• Ronald Reagan turned the country to the right. There was a Reagan Revolution and he did believe that government was the root of all evil. He helped bring an end to the Cold War by forcing the old Soviet Union into an arms race it could not afford.

• George Bush I is best known for the Gulf War victory where he mustered 28 nations, including the biggies to join a coalition against Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait. His polls were high, 90 percent, but his economic policies proved to be politically fatal.

• Bill Clinton, his heart was in the right place. He moved the party to the center. He worked for peace in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and the Middle East. But his personal liaisons hampered his presidency and he never knew one second in the White House when the ultra-right in this country was not investigating him and trying to deny his legitimacy. They had held the White House for 12 years and hated to give it up.

• George W. Bush, seeking reelection, relentlessly on the road, the most conservative president in decades. His philosophy is simple, black and white, good and evil, with us or against us, dead or alive. He is messianic. He told the Amish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Monday, “I trust God speaks through me. Without that I couldn’t do my job.”

No president has ever liked the press, dating back to George Washington. I wasn’t covering him but…irreverence is the way we play this game.

Kennedy said I’m reading more and enjoying it less.

What LBJ said is unprintable.

Nixon looked up when a pool of reporters and cameramen came into the cabinet room and said it’s only coincidental that we’re talking about pollution when the press walks in.

Ford said if God had created the world in six days he could not have rested, he would have had to explain it to Helen Thomas.

President Carter always seemed to be saying, “Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.”

When President Reagan was told that a press helicopter had been fired on at the Honduran border, he said, “There’s some good in everyone.”

President Bush One said when he was in the White House he believed in freedom of the press, now he believes in freedom from the press.

When President Clinton was asked why the press always went along in the motorcade when he went jogging, he laughed and said, “They just want to see if I drop dead.”

That’s true. We’re on the presidential body watch.

Apropos of nothing when Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, interviewed Fidel Castro a couple of years ago. He asked Castro, “What’s the difference between your democracy and ours?” “I don’t have to answer questions from Helen Thomas,” Castro replied.

I have many memories from covering the White House. I remember when Kennedy said off the cuff at a news conference, “Life is unfair.”

I remember when LBJ invited us to dinner and asked Bill Moyers, a former Baptist Minister who was then his press secretary to say grace. Moyers bent his head and began to pray. LBJ told Moyers to speak up and Moyers responded, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

I remember President Carter’s mother who said, “Sometimes when I look at my children I wish I had remained a virgin.”

And I remember on Air Force One when we asked JFK what would happen if the aircraft crashed. “I know one thing,” he said. “Your name will just be a footnote.”

For all that, we are so lucky to live in a democracy.

In struggling for a more open free society, I remember many sayings:

Federal Judge Damon Keith said in a ruling that a deportation hearing should be open to the press. “Democracy dies behind closed doors.”

Adlai Stevenson said, “Democracy is great not only because the majority prevails but because it’s safe to be in the minority.”

And Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been invented.”

After World War II, he also said, “In victory, magnanimity,” and we showed that with the Marshall Plan and the way we acted in the postwar world.

As long as I am quoting the famous, my other favorites are one from Lincoln who said, “Let the people know the facts and the country will be safe.”

And Jefferson who said, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

So ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for all of us. And let’s give peace a chance, and let it begin with us.

Thank you.