SOME FOREIGN PRESS REACTIONS TO REAGAN'S DEATH

Reuters Deutschland: "Reagan honored as great friend of the Germans." A quote from German President Johannes Rau:

"In a divided world, he always held firm to a our common vision of a unified and peaceful Europe."

"In einer geteilten Welt hat er stets an unserer gemeinsamen Vision von einem vereinten und friedlichen Europa festgehalten"

Le Monde: "The man who made the 'evil empire' fall," has a passage on the March 8, 1983 "evil empire" speech at the National Association of Evangelicals:

The traditional diplomats were shocked once more, and for the soviet propogandists of that time, “Reagan the Cowboy” became “Hitler,” the man who could lead the world to war and against whom “reasonable” european leaders must be put on guard. In reality, Ronald Reagan’s anti-sovietism was similar to his domestic conservative ideology: more words than actions, a pragmatism with a variable geometry balanced with an invariable credo. Further, it’s not clear what someone else could have done better in the circumstances of those times. Ronald Reagan made the best out of the hardening of east-west relations during his first term in office, but he had no difficulty dealing with the thaw that followed, which was in some respects the result of his efforts.

Les diplomates traditionnels furent choqués une fois de plus et, pour les propagandistes soviétiques d'alors, "Reagan le cowboy" devint "Hitler", l'homme qui pouvait conduire à la guerre et contre qui il fallait mettre en garde les dirigeants européens "raisonnables". Dans la réalité, il en a été de l'antisoviétisme de Ronald Reagan comme de son idéologie conservatrice à l'intérieur : plus de mots que d'actions, un pragmatisme à géométrie variable compensé par un credo invariant. Et puis, on ne voit pas très bien ce qu'un autre aurait fait de mieux dans les circonstances de l'époque. Ronald Reagan a tiré le meilleur parti de la glaciation des relations Est-Ouest pendant son premier mandat, mais il a aussi accompagné sans difficulté aucune le dégel qui suivit, et qui était d'ailleurs largement dû à son action.

The Globe and Mail: "Reagan recalled as 'friend of Canada's'":

Brian Mulroney told reporters in Montreal that he considers Mr. Reagan, who died Saturday, an "icon."

"Ronald Reagan enters history as an icon and I was honoured to be his friend," Mr. Mulroney said.

"He was also a great friend of Canada's. It was with president Reagan I was able to negotiate the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement which has brought such a great degree of prosperity.". . .

When asked for a favourite moment by a reporter, Mr. Mulroney recalled a moment saved in many a Canadian memory bank.

It was time they got together in Quebec City on St. Patrick's Day in 1985. Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Regan performed When Irish Eyes are Smiling live on stage, a signal of how close Ottawa and Washington had become.

La Prensa (Nicaragua), "Ronald Reagan is dead" [link is capricious]:

Yesterday's death of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan at the age of 93 caused divided reactions in Nicaragua, as his allies in the eighties described him as "one of the great men of the twentieth century," and his adversaries from the same period said that he was the "patron of terror."

La muerte ayer del ex mandatario de Estados Unidos, Ronald Reagan, de 93 años, incitó comentarios divididos en Nicaragua, porque sus aliados en la década de los años ochenta lo catalogaron como “uno de los personajes más grandes del siglo XX” y, por otro lado, sus adversarios de esa misma época dijeron que fue “el padrino del terror”.