Dr. Pak gave the following opening remarks at the 17th American Leadership Conference held in Washington, D.C., on September 29-October 1, 1989. At each ALC program, numerous experts from the fields of education, media, and international security addressed the audience. The guests were treated to not only "theoretical" or philosophical discussions, but practical and current assessments of world events.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the American Leadership Conference, I would like to welcome all of you to Washington, D.C., and to the 17th American Leadership Conference.

Today we are observing dramatic changes in the world. The Soviet Union, our global adversary throughout most of this century, has been driven to the brink of ideological revision by the deepest social and economic crisis in its history. China, which tragically followed the Soviet Union into communism forty years ago, is now being shaken by a massive popular revolt against communist party rule. Furthermore, the Asian Pacific area in general is booming with new development, much of it based upon the American political and economic formula.

With this in mind, it is very appropriate that we gather together once again to consider the very roots of the American system of government and the challenges we now face in the world.

In 1988, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to New York and spoke at the United Nations. At that time, he promised to reduce the size of the Soviet military and remove some weapons from Europe. In February 1989, it was reported that all Soviet soldiers had left Afghanistan. What do such gestures mean? Is Gorbachev a genuine reformer? Will he transform the Soviet Union into a peaceful member of the world community of nations? Or is he a practitioner of deception as advocated by Lenin? The thoughts and feelings of most observers can he summed up in one word: confusion.

In a column in The Washington Times on November 2, 1988, Pat Buchanan wrote about one dimension of the confusion. He said,

The NATO allies are falling all over one another to ease Mr. Gorbachev's problems by providing him with huge infusions of cash. In return for what? This past week, the Soviets sent 30 MiG-27 fighter bombers into Afghanistan; Moscow has stepped up espionage operations against the United States; the KGB's anti-American propaganda is more savage than ever. Furthermore, the Soviet Union has not reduced its military aid to Nicaragua by one penny. With these credits, the Europeans and Japanese are relieving Moscow of the necessity of choice: guns or butter. The European leaders of NATO are telling the Russian leaders of the Warsaw Pact: you can have both; we will finance the butter, while you finance the guns.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, also made this comment:

Gorbachev did not launch glasnost and perestroika because he is Mr. Nice Guy. He has simply reached the obvious conclusion that Soviet domestic policies have failed and his armed forces are becoming increasingly irrelevant in furthering Moscow's global objectives. But that could change overnight if the U.S. were perceived to be abandoning its commitments to the free world, to its friends, and to its allies.

The question often arises of which problem, of the many we face in the 20th century, is the chief problem of our time? Five years ago, in a book entitled How Democracies Perish, French author Jean Francois Revel made this observation. I quote: "The closer we get to the end of this century, the more communist imperialism becomes the chief problem of our time.

No other threat to the world's freedom has endured as long. A system that has grown so strong despite so many failings must embody a principle of action and a concentration of power more effective than any mankind has ever known before. Communism and the Soviet Empire are unprecedented in history."

It is startling to compare communism with Christianity. Christ came 2,000 years ago and gave the world a powerful message of truth and love. Christianity has now become the world's largest religion and has been received by nearly one-quarter of the world's population. But it took 2,000 years.

Communism, on the other hand, was only born in the last century. Yet it has been forcibly imposed upon more people than are now Christians. For the first 70 years of its existence, Marxism-Leninism seemed to be unstoppable. In that time, it came to dominate more than one and a half billion people, taking one nation after another and spreading over the entire globe. Today, even as Mikhail Gorbachev states at the United Nations that the threat of force can no longer be an instrument of foreign policy, he knows that young communist soldiers are fighting to overthrow democracy in places such as El Salvador, the Philippines, Peru, Africa, and even my country, South Korea.

The ultimate question is: Will our children live in freedom, or will they be forced to live under a totalitarian system? No one really knows. Yet one thing is very clear. The problem of securing a free and prosperous future for all of our children is not something that someone else should worry about. It is not a problem that only the President of the United States should worry about. It is my problem. It is your problem. Our destiny, our children's destiny, our grandchildren's destiny and their well-being are at stake.

To defeat communism, we must understand it. What is communism anyway? Where did the power come from which allowed it to expand so rapidly? The answer is that communism is more than a political system and more than an economic or social system. Communism is an ideology.

Even though communism is based on lies and deceptions, its lies and false promises have demonstrated the power to conquer a man's mind so completely that he would give his life for the victory of communism. That has been the power of communism. It stems from the power of ideology. That power defeated the United States in the Vietnam war. The outcome of the Vietnam war was not a military defeat. It was an ideological defeat. Communism assaulted America ideologically, until she became confused and demoralized and unable to carry on the fight. The United States military was ready to carry out its duty and did so with courage and excellence. But that war, for the first time in American history, was one the American army could not win!

In that war, the battlefield was not even Saigon. It was Washington, D.C. This is where the outcome of the war was decided. The United States abandoned $5 billion worth of weapons in South Vietnam. When there is no clear purpose and will to fight, $5 billion worth of military armaments will not do any good. In order to combat communism, therefore, we must fight with the same weapon the communists use, ideology. A false ideology must be overcome by a true ideology. We must fight fire with fire. There is no other way we can win.

We must understand that today's struggle between communism and the free world is really a struggle of ideas, a struggle of value systems, a struggle of two different ways of life. More precisely it is boiling down to the question of theism versus atheism-God or no God.

If God did not exist, then communism could appear to be correct. When God is removed, communism seems to offer a very convincing explanation of human life and human history. However, if God truly exists, then there is no question that communism is false. Communism is based on the very denial of God.

Since two contradictory beliefs cannot both be true, then there must be a showdown. Who shall win? Communism, or the free world? It is not a question of who shall win. The point is, the truth shall prevail. God or no God, one of the two must be a lie. Ultimately the lie will be defeated and truth shall prevail. America has been prosperous not because we are lucky or because we have an abundance of resources, but because we are on the side of truth, the side of God.

The ideology or worldview which you will hear during this seminar is a philosophical framework that precisely deals with these problems of the reality of God. This worldview is a God-centered worldview which does two essential things. First, it totally exposes the lies and deceptions of communism. Second, it offers a clear philosophical basis for freedom under God.

Accepting the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident and Nobel Laureate said bluntly, "If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Bolshevik revolution that destroyed more than 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: `Men have forgotten God.' That is why all this has happened."

This forsaking of God he identified as the principal trait of the entire 20th century which is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction.

It is one thing, he observed, that millions of human beings have been corrupted and spiritually devastated by an officially imposed atheism such as in the Soviet Union; but it is another that the tide of atheistic secularism has progressively inundated the West so that the concepts of good and evil have themselves been ridiculed. This is precisely the case in modern day America.

Seventy years ago in the Soviet Union, God was forgotten. That allowed communism to swallow up over 160 million innocent human lives. Today 70 years later, America seems to have forgotten God too.

This is most tragic because it is precisely at this time that the world is looking to America for a vision of the future. Chinese students gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and bravely defied the tanks and guns of massed government troops, demanding, as Lincoln said, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." They cried out, as Patrick Henry did, "Give me liberty or give me death!" And they suffered death, with the same spirit as revolutionary Americans.

Protesters in Shanghai erected a replica of the Statue of Liberty on the doorstep of government offices. When we realize that the people of the world continue to look to America as a symbol of what they are fighting for, we know that we cannot allow America to decline-not when the world is depending on her the most.

When you forsake God, either in the name of communism or in the name of atheistic humanism, the result will be the same: self-destruction.

The essence of communism is found in its militant anti-God character. The late French philosopher Maurice Ravel once said, "Through the Renaissance men came to deny sin, through the Enlightenment they came to deny revelation, and through communism they came to deny God."

In the name of science, the communists have attempted to eliminate God from human affairs. This is the fundamental error of communism. And based on this material view of man, they have justified many heinous crimes against humanity.

America, therefore, and the free world must awaken now to the awesome truth. God or no God is the central issue. We are bringing the question down to a fundamental level. Only with God's power can we prevail. This is true in winning against communism, and it is true in winning against the corruption and decadence of the West.

Mikhail Gorbachev has traveled to New York and has charmed the American people, both with his personal manner and his policies of glasnost and perestroika. But to put this in perspective, let me quote from an important book, published a few years ago, which seemed to anticipate Gorbachev's reforms. Entitled USSR: The Corrupt Society, it was written by a former Soviet attorney, Konstantin Simis. Simis writes:

Even if the ruling elite undertook a decisive battle against corruption, such an attempt would be doomed to failure, since at the root of the general corruption of the Soviet Union lies the totalitarian rule of the Communist party, single-handedly ruling the country. This power is checked neither by law nor by a free press. And the nature of any unrestricted power is such that it inevitably corrupts those who wield it and constantly generates the phenomenon of corruption. So it is that corruption has become the organic and unchangeable essence of the Soviet regime and can be eliminated only by a root change in the means of government. And now, finishing this book, I ask myself: what next? What is the future of my country? And I answer my own question with bitterness: The Soviet government and Soviet society cannot rid itself of corruption as long as it remains Soviet. It is as simple as that.

This means that the Soviet Union cannot fundamentally change itself as long as it remains communist. The only solution, therefore, is de-communization. That means, first, they must allow belief in God to prosper. Second, they must allow true freedom of expression. Third, they must allow genuine self-government to flourish. Unless the Soviet Union changes in these three fundamental ways, Mr. Gorbachev's perestroika will never succeed. Pat Buchanan wrote again in The Washington Times on May 24, 1989, the following: "If the purpose of American foreign policy is to guarantee the security of this republic and the peace of the world, surely our goal must be to see an ultimate transfer of power in Moscow as well as Beijing, from communists to anti-communists. What Mr. Gorbachev wants are agreements to perpetuate Lenin's regime and save Moscow's empire; what we should give him are agreements looking to the final days of both."

This is a very special time in America's history. In 1986 we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Lady Liberty, who as America's hostess has welcomed the poor and the oppressed from throughout the world. In 1987 we celebrated the bicentennial of our Constitution. In 1988 we exercised our freedoms as we chose a new president. Now, that new administration is beginning to govern the nation.

What are the principles that allowed America to endure and prosper all this time? The answer lies in the founding document of America, the Declaration of Independence. First, the Declaration recognizes God, the Creator, and defines life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as being rights granted by God. It is God-given life and God-given liberty which make human life holy and supremely valuable. In other words, in the American ideology, human value comes from God. This sets America apart from communism. In the Marxist view, human rights are given by the state, according to the wisdom of the Communist Party.

Second, the Declaration states, "all men are created equal." It does not say, "all Americans are created equal." It does not say, "certain races are created equal." It does not say, "certain religions are created equal." It says, "all men are created equal."

This shows that the American dream has always gone beyond the boundaries of the United States. It is a universal dream. It is the dream of every person. It must he realized everywhere.

Furthermore, as a Judeo-Christian nation, we Americans are taught to love our neighbor as ourselves. This means that the freedom of our neighbors in Nicaragua, our neighbors in Afghanistan, our neighbors in South Africa, our neighbors in China, and our neighbors everywhere, is a matter of our concern. In the same way, we are also concerned about our neighbors in the Soviet Union. The 270 million people in the Soviet Union are victims of communism. They are waiting for the day of liberation. Who shall bring them liberation? Unless we free people unite and commit ourselves to the liberation of oppressed people from tyranny, where will they find hope? The liberation of Moscow and the communist world is the duty of all free men.

We Americans are called upon to be good Samaritans. There is only one country in the entire world that has the power and capacity to save the world from totalitarianism. That is our great nation, the United States of America. And America has been called by God to fulfill this responsibility. That is why American soldiers fought in World War I and World War II. That is why they died in my homeland of Korea. That is why they gave their lives in the jungles of Vietnam. We can see that America has faithfully attempted to be a good Samaritan. That is why God has blessed this country abundantly.

The theme of this conference is the formulation of an American ideology. What do we mean by this? Is it an attempt to introduce a foreign ideology to America? Not at all! The founders of America, beginning with the Pilgrim Fathers, were inspired by God to establish a new nation, dedicated to a new proposition and based on self-evident truths. They called it a new order for the ages, and inscribed those words on the Great Seal of the United States. That Great Seal is reproduced on every one dollar bill, along with the words, "In God We Trust."

We stand here today in place of the Founding Fathers. What we need today is new momentum and new commitment. What is called for today is a new American Revolution which goes back to the very roots of America.

Our Founding Fathers were bold enough to declare "One nation under God"; and it came to pass. But today the American dream must be renewed into a new dimension, because we live in a different age. The world is getting smaller every day. No nation is an island. We have to think in terms of the survival and prosperity of all the people of the world. Our expanded dream must be that of one world under God-a community of nations under God. This is the only way we can survive and prosper in freedom.

Such a declaration might seem naive when 40 percent of the world's land mass and population are still controlled by a militant anti-God ideology. But then, it also seemed naive 200 some years ago to declare independence from the most powerful empire on the face of the earth at that time, Great Britain. It may have seemed naive at that time to attempt to write a constitution that would unite people of every religion, every ethnic background, and every social stratum into one republic. It was an impossible task, but it came to pass. Two hundred years later, the United States has become the world's most formidable nation.

On the other hand, the Communist world is crumbling. Why? Simply because they have been following the exact opposite of the American ideology. They have maintained that only communism is scientific and true and will achieve the salvation of humankind. In reality, communism is neither scientific nor true. Instead of bringing salvation, it has literally brought a human hell on earth. And the people under communism now look to America for salvation.

On our side, the opposite has taken place. The American ideology has proven itself. The truth has won out. We should be able to shout, "We won! We won!" The collapse of communism worldwide should encourage us to strengthen our faith in God, in our principles, and in our way of life.

Sadly, however, on the very eve of victory America is showing signs of fatigue, signs of apathy, and sure signs of moral decline. America shows signs of going the way the Roman Empire did centuries ago. Today the major threat is no longer an external one. There are, however, new enemies on the horizon, deadly enemies. They are drug abuse, growing violence, crimes, and other results of moral illiteracy. Every nine seconds in this country, a bullet is fired in a criminal act. Every 15 minutes one American is murdered. We have fallen prey to an invasion, not of foreign troops on our soil, but of evil and hatred into the soul of our people. In the moment of triumph of democracy throughout the world, we find America in a moral crisis.

These things are happening because we are departing from fundamental American principles, the founding spirit of the nation. The question of whether this nation will endure and prosper depends upon what action we take at this crossroads of history.

Our task is to rekindle the true American spirit. The foundation is there. We simply need to rebuild it.

Can we do it? Certainly we can. In western movies, John Wayne always comes on the scene at the bleakest hour. What should we do today to launch such a great awakening? We simply need to follow the successful model of our Founding Fathers. What did they do? First, they had faith in Almighty God. This was their common bond. They believed in the firm protection of Divine Providence. Second, they took action. They firmly pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to accomplish this goal. To me, this is most inspiring, and this is the secret of the success of the First American Revolution.

Today, in launching the Second American Revolution, I know we can do no less. This is America's destiny. In this crucial context we have convened this conference in Washington, D.C. As you can see, you have come to a very special conference.

We Americans are doers. We are the new Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Madisons. If we can emerge from this conference spiritually and intellectually enriched, with a new and greater sense of commitment to America and to our freedom under God, then I feel that we will have accomplished our mission.

I would like to conclude my remarks by quoting the famous words of Victor Hugo, "More powerful than an invading army is an idea whose time has come."

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the new Great Awakening which is being kindled by these American Leadership Conferences is an idea whose time has come.

God bless you. Thank you very much.

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