As an author and columnist, Margaret Ellen “Peggy” Noonan has often cited the political figures in history she admires, like Abraham Lincoln and Edmund Burke.

Ronald Reagan can be added to that short list, especially since she authored some of his greatest speeches.

Having done radio and television commentary for the last four decades, Noonan knows about great journalism. Last year, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

When you combine Noonan’s speech writing with the kind of expert verbiage that earned Reagan the title of “Great Communicator,” the results had to be special.

Two of the speeches authored by Noonan and delivered by Reagan rank among the best American addresses of the 20th century. In 1986, after the Challenger explosion, Reagan gave another powerful speech his address to the nation.

He ended it with poet John Magee’s words used to describe courageous aviators.

“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives,” Reagan said. “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.’ ”

But many consider Reagan’s 1984 D-Day speech — given on the anniversary of the Allied landings in France — to be the greatest address made by an American politician in the past century. Since it was given at a military cemetery in Normandy, some compared it to the Gettysburg Address, which was delivered by President Lincoln on another consecrated field of battle.

Lincoln’s famous address during the Civil War took about two minutes, while Reagan’s speech lasted just under 13 minutes. Standing in front of a stone monument marking the point where one Army battalion centered its attack on Normandy, Reagan noted that there were soldiers present in his audience that day who made the assault 40 years earlier.

“These are the champions who helped free a continent,” Reagan said. “These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

In 1984, Americans were still dealing with the bitterness of the war in Southeast Asia. Reagan managed to weave it into his speech by issuing a challenge to protect and defend democracy.

“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost,” he said. “We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”

Reagan told how the nation and its soldiers drew on their faith, pointing out that “God was an ally in this great cause.”

“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right; faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next,” Reagan said. “It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause.”

He stressed the fact that America does not wish to conquer or to hold territories.

“The only territories we hold are memorials … and graveyards where our heroes rest,” he said.

Reagan was able to join America’s past crusade — defeating the Nazis and liberating Europe — with their immediate challenge against Communism and the Soviet Union.

Noonan later explained how the true message of that D-Day speech was aimed at the NATO leaders of the West and the people of Europe. It reminded them that just as the “greatest generation” of World War II beat back the expansionist regimes in Japan and Nazis Germany, the Western allies were also facing down Communism and the Soviet Union.

Noonan said that this speech was not just a commemorative event, but an attempt to “exhort, persuade and move history.”

That analysis of the speech was prophetic.

In June 1987, three years after his D-Day speech, Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” during another famous speech at Germany’s Brandenburg Gate. The “fall of the Berlin Wall,” which paved the way for German reunification, came 29 months later, and on Dec. 26, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.

This Wednesday marks the 34th anniversary of that famous Normandy address. Noonan’s words and Reagan’s delivery style produced a speech that truly did move history.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com