Memorial Day Ceremony

May 24th, 2001

Fort Meade, Maryland

Submitted by Mr. Powers for publication in the Update & Review

We need to make sure that future generations know the events and people that influenced and shaped our American way of life. It was President John F. Kennedy who said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the individuals it produces, but also by those it honors — those it remembers.”

I was asked to speak about the Cold War and its meaning for Memorial Day. One of the great ironies of the 20th Century is that America’s longest war is also its least memorialized.

The Cold War. It was a global conflict. The history of the Cold War has been the history of the world since 1945.

James Billington, Librarian of Congress, called the Cold War “ … the central conflict of the second half of the twentieth century, the longest and most unconventional war of the entire modern era-an altogether unprecedented experience for Americans. We were faced for the first time with an opponent who was both ideologically committed to overthrow our system and was equipped to destroy us physically.”

The most significant difference between previous wars and the Cold War is that the Cold War was a clandestine war. It was a war that only the participants knew well. We never directly fought our principal antagonist, the Soviet Union, in direct military combat. The Cold War was not fought in that sense. It was not a war in which battles and bloodshed played a major role.

The Cold War had been set off by the sudden expansion of Russia into Europe. If we had to give a particular day that it began, many look to the date of the Truman Doctrine, March 12, 1947. The Cold War Museum’s position states that the Cold War began with the end of World War II on September 2, 1945.

Many others refer to the date when Winston Churchill gave a famous speech, known as the “Iron Curtain” speech, in Fulton, Missouri on March 6, 1946. That speech foretells our reasons for entering into the Cold War. Many of you might be familiar with that speech. I would like to read a short passage:

“An iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin,

Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia, all these famous cities lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject … not only to Soviet influence … but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow.

“The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power … and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.”

What began as an iron curtain, after 15 years, turned into the infamous Berlin Wall. On August 13, 1961, as my father sat in a Soviet prison, the East Germans closed off the crossing points into East Berlin with a barbed wire barricade. On August 17, they began construction of a concrete wall topped with barbed wire.

If you’ve read John Le Carre’s novel “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,” you have an excellent idea of what that wall was like. I guess we all remember

President Reagan’s famous statement, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

The wall would stand for 28 years, until it was torn down on November 9, 1989. Two years later, on December 26, 1991, the Cold War ended when the

Soviet Union vanished from the map.

Charles Krauthammer said in the Washington Post, “The Cold War did not have the dramatic intensity of World War II. But it was just as real and just as dangerous. Though often clandestine and subtle, it ranged worldwide, cost many lives, evoked much heroism and lasted what seemed like forever … Considering the stakes, the scope and the suffering, this was a struggle that surely deserves commemoration. Let us build a monument to it … let the President call for the building of a Cold War memorial. If he won’t, Congress should.”

Today, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry are placing these small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They will then patrol 24-hours-a-day during the weekend to make sure that each flag remains standing until May 28, when the Memorial Day

Ceremony takes place.

The President will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

On May 27, the Rolling Thunder will roar into Washington on their annual rally to honor Vietnam veterans and to demand the return of all MIA’s.

On May 28, thousands will visit the Vietnam War Memorial and touch the Wall; others will visit the Korean War Memorial. And plans have been approved for a long overdue World War II memorial.

Thousands of towns and cities across America will present their own Memorial Day celebrations, from the smallest villages which bring out their only fire truck and the Boy Scouts, to the largest cities with elaborate parades and speeches.

There are 70,000 gravestones of Americans who rest on foreign soil where they fell, from the hillsides of Naples to the rows of cliffs overlooking the

Normandy shore. And they will be visited also. As they should be.

But where are the graves of those who lost their lives in the Cold War? And where is their memorial? We also need to recognize those who give their lives protecting us, not surrounded by comrades, but by killers – not given a hero’s funeral, but an unmarked grave – not killed in combat, but by treachery.

At the NSA there is a memorial wall named They Served in Silence, which honors NSA employees killed in the line of duty. At the CIA, there is a granite wall carved with 77 stars. Each star represents an intelligence officer who gave his or her life in the line of duty. There are 77 stars, but how many died, anonymously, without recognition, without acknowledgment, we’ll never know.

Where do Cold War families go to honor their dead? What graves can they decorate with flags and flowers? What memorial do these unsung heroes have?

The Cold War means much to me personally. As the son of a famous Cold War figure, I grew up with the Cold War. The Cold War Museum began for me as a way to honor my father, but it soon took on a greater life and purpose. I am working toward a museum that will honor all the men and women who worked for democracy and freedom during the Cold War. The museum is not about reviving old hatreds, but rather about promoting lessons learned. It’s about teaching democracy and world peace.

Through the long winter of the Cold War, we stood with the free people of Europe. Today we have a historic opportunity and a challenge. To nurture those new democracies that emerged from the iron grip of Soviet domination. And we will.

At the end of an ideal story, good triumphs over evil, and those who had been in darkness find the light. We know there will always be shadows. And that cold winds sometimes continue to blow.

But here, today, in this place, this is our time to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice, who gave their life for their country; who understood that the true meaning of life is to make a difference. They have made a difference and our lives and our country has been moved by their deeds.