Mr. President. Mrs. Reagan. Ladies and gentlemen. I’m Chuck Heston. I’m your master of ceremonies this evening. Actually, my prime function was to ensure a pleasant evening, and I’m happy to take the credit for it. If you’d gone to as many picnics as I have over the years and when it rains they look at you reproachfully, you’d understand my comment.
Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever attended a birthday party for a magazine. Pm a little embarrassed I forgot to bring a gift. But really, it’s hard to know what to bring a magazine that’s got everything except the circulation of TV Guide. As for me, Pm here because a few weeks ago I got a phone call from Hill. “Chuck,” he said, “how do you feel about free speech?” Now, I thought he was going to quote me an editorial or something. And so I hastened to assure him that of all the freedoms I treasure as an American citizen, the one I hold most precious is free speech. Bill said, “That’s wonderful, Chuck. We’d like you to come East and make one. ” So while you’re all here to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of national review. I’m here to make certain my subscription’s renewed. national review over the past thirty years has not merely recorded but stimulated, even impelled, the political maturation, the coming of age, of this country. I can bear personal witness to this reality in my own political argosy beginning, as so many of us did, as a Roosevelt liberal. But enough of that.
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