Stranger things have happened. A free trade agreement with Japan is no stranger, no more seemingly Pollyannish, than the idea that 50 years ago, a war between Germany and France would be inconceivable. Yet in Western Europe it is inconceivable today, thanks to democracy sinking real roots, thanks to the positive forces of change we helped put in motion. They had been at each other's throats for a thousand years. Yet now war's inconceivable.
Diplomats like to say they're realists.
If we had trusted the realists all the time, we'd still be living in caves. So occasionally, we have to come out of our caves and throw the long pass, try to do something that may seem unrealistic today, but in a positive sense make the conditions possible to make what is unrealistic today positively realistic tomorrow. I'm an optimist. I do think when the American people understand the issues, they will do things more right than wrong, just as they did when Ronald Reagan and Bill Casey went before them in 1980. I think we can do it again.