US Presidency
1992

New leaders with new vision faced the hard truths that their predecessors had long denied. Glasnost, perestroika: They may have been Russian words, but the concepts at their core were universal. The Soviet Union did not simply lose the cold war; the Western democracies won it. I say this not to gloat but to make a key point. The qualities that enabled us to triumph in that struggle, faith, strength, unity, and above all, American leadership, are those we must call upon now to win the peace. In recent years, with the Soviet empire in its death throes, the potential for crisis and conflict was never greater, the demand for American leadership never more compelling. As the peoples of Eastern Europe made their bold move for freedom, we urged them along a peaceful path to liberation. They turned to us. They turned to America, and we did not turn away. And when our German friends took their hammers to tear down that wall, we encouraged a united Germany, safely within the NATO alliance.