(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. This week in our series, we look at the presidential campaign of nineteen eighty and the election of Ronald Reagan. The months before Election Day in November of nineteen eighty were difficult for President Jimmy Carter. Many Americans blamed the Democrat for the nation's economic problems, including high inflation and high unemployment. Many also blamed him for not gaining the release of fifty-two American hostages in Iran. About a year earlier, Muslim extremists had seized the United States embassy in Tehran and taken the Americans as prisoners. President Carter urged all Americans to support his administration during the crisis. As the months went by, however, he made no progress in bringing the hostages home. The Iranians rejected negotiations for their release, and an attempt to rescue them failed. The president appeared powerless.
Carter's political weakness led another Democrat, Ted Kennedy, to compete against him for the party's nomination. Kennedy was a powerful senator from Massachusetts and brother of former President John Kennedy. But at their national convention the Democrats nominated Carter for a second term, along with his vice president, Walter Mondale. Kennedy chose not to support them very strongly, so the Democratic Party was divided for the general election. The Republican Party, however, was united behind a strong candidate -- Ronald Reagan, a former actor and former governor of California. Reagan's running mate for vice president was George H. W. Bush. Bush had served in Congress and as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had also represented the United States as ambassador to China and to the United Nations. The inability of the Carter administration to solve the hostage crisis and other problems made many Americans feel that their country was weak. Reagan promised to give them confidence once more in the nation's strength.
Carter and Reagan debated each other several weeks before the election. To some people, Carter seemed angry and defensive while Reagan seemed calm and thoughtful. "Next Tuesday is Election Day. Next Tuesday, all of you will go to the polls and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more, or less, unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? "And if you answer all of those questions 'yes,' why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to who you'll vote for. If you don't agree -- if you don't think that this course we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four -- then, I could suggest another choice that you have." On Election Day, voters gave Reagan a huge victory. It became known as the "Reagan Revolution." Inauguration Day was January twentieth, nineteen eighty-one. Ronald Reagan became the nation's fortieth president and, at sixty-nine, the oldest ever elected.
In his inaugural speech, the new president talked about the goals of his administration. A major goal was to reduce the size of the federal government. Reagan and other conservatives believed that the nation's economy was suffering because of high taxes and unnecessary laws. Government, he said, was not the solution to the problem. Government was the problem. He urged Americans to join him in what he called a "new beginning." "The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months. But they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now -- as we have had in the past -- to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom." Ronald Reagan was born in nineteen eleven in the small community of Tampico, Illinois. He was a good student and a good athlete. During summers, he worked as a lifeguard at a river and saved a number of swimmers. He studied economics and sociology and was on the swim team at Eureka College, a small school in Illinois. While in college, he became interested in acting. But he did not have enough money to go to New York or Hollywood to study to become an actor. Instead, he tried out for a job as a sports announcer on radio.
To show his abilities, he made a recording of a football game in which he announced all the plays. But the game was imaginary. He invented all the action. A radio station in Davenport, Iowa, liked his creativity and gave him the job. Later, "Dutch" Reagan, as he was called, worked at a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa. And then he moved to the big city -- Chicago, where he worked as an announcer for the Chicago Cubs baseball team. In March of nineteen thirty-seven, the Cubs were in California for spring training. Reagan went along, and while he was there he took a screen test with Warner Brothers. The movie studio liked the friendly, handsome young man and offered him a job. In fact, in his first movie, he played a radio announcer. Before long, Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood star. He appeared in many movies – some good, some ordinary, but most very popular with the public. In the nineteen-forty film "Knute Rockne -- All American," Reagan played Notre Dame University college football player George Gipp. His deathbed speech contained a line that would often be associated with the Reagan presidency.
"Ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, but I'll know about it, and I'll be happy." In "Kings Row," Reagan played a double amputee who had lost both legs. "Randy! Randy! Randy! Where's the rest of me? Randy ... " "Yes, Drake!" "It was an accident." "Yes, dear. But don't talk about it yet." He remembered "Kings Row" as the film that made him a star. During World War Two Reagan joined what was then the Army Air Corps and made training films. Reagan became deeply interested in politics during his years in Hollywood. He started out a liberal, but his political views became increasingly conservative. He served six times as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a union of movie actors. He was noted for his opposition to anyone in the movie industry who supported communism. Later, during his presidency, the public learned that he had also been a secret informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was during a campaign against suspected communist sympathizers in Hollywood.
After the war, Reagan guided the Screen Actors Guild through a frightening time for actors and others in the entertainment industry. It was the time of the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee. Its hearings resulted in the feared "blacklist." The blacklist was responsible for hurting -- even ending --the careers of many in the film and television industries if they were thought to be communists or to have communist sympathies. It was through the blacklist scare that Reagan met his second wife, Nancy Davis. Her name had mistakenly been confused with that of another actress, causing it to appear on a blacklist, and she sought Reagan's help in correcting the mistake. They fell in love, and would marry in nineteen fifty-two. "Must be a big push this time, Case." "The admiral told me not to tell." Reagan and Nancy Davis appeared together in the World War Two drama "Hellcats of the Navy," in which he played a naval officer and she a navy nurse who loved him. "The admiral should have told me not to worry." "I thought we'd settled all that. About you and me." "It won't stay settled, Case. Not until you tell me you've stopped caring."
By the early nineteen fifties, Reagan stopped appearing in movies and turned instead to a new medium -- television. "And every Sunday night, General Electric brings you the finest motion picture stars on TV. The great names in comedy, in mystery, in romance. Every week, a star, all summer long, on the General Electric Theater." For many years, Ronald Reagan was the commercial spokesman for General Electric and host of a series of dramatic shows. For much of his life Ronald Reagan was a Democrat. By nineteen sixty, however, he was making speeches for conservative Republican candidates. In nineteen sixty-six, he became a candidate himself. He ran as a Republican for governor of California. Democrats did not take him seriously. They made fun of some of his movie roles, as in "Bedtime for Bonzo," a comedy where his co-star was a chimp. But Reagan had the last laugh. He won the election by almost a million votes. As governor, Reagan was praised for reducing the state's debt but criticized for raising taxes. Some people also thought he reacted too strongly against student unrest on college campuses. But he won reelection in nineteen seventy.
In nineteen seventy-six Reagan ran for the Republican presidential nomination. He came close to winning that nomination away from President Gerald Ford. Ford recognized that there was strong support for Reagan among the convention delegates. After accepting the nomination, Ford asked Reagan to share the stage with him. The strong welcome that Reagan received was a clear sign of his future in the party. That future would come just four years later, when Reagan won the presidency. On Reagan's Inauguration Day, Iran finally released the hostages it had been holding for four hundred forty-four days. Walter Cronkite paused in his CBS television coverage of the inauguration for this breaking news report from Dan Rather. "Walter, according to our CBS News sources at Tehran airport, one of the two Algerian jetliners is taxiing, or was just a few moments ago. And the drama on the runway of the Tehran airport continues, as the long agony for the brave fifty-two has continued throughout this morning." "Now, as best as we can make it out, here is where the situation with the American hostages stands at this moment. They remain in Tehran, at least they were just a few moments ago at the airport, apparently moments away from their flight to freedom, a few moments after spending four hundred forty-four days in captivity.
"And can you imagine what it must have been like inside that airliner for the hostages this morning?" As president, Ronald Reagan quickly began work to get Congress to reduce taxes. He also began a weekly series of radio broadcasts. Each Saturday he would comment on developments in American life and politics. The broadcasts were similar to the "fireside chats" of President Franklin Roosevelt during the nineteen thirties. Reagan's ability to relate to people earned him the nickname "the Great Communicator." Two months after he took office, Ronald Reagan was shot while leaving an event at a hotel in Washington. In the first moments, no one realized that he had been hit. But there was a bullet in his left lung, close to his heart. At the hospital, Reagan jokingly told the doctors: "I hope you're all Republicans." They were able to remove the bullet and he made a full recovery. But the shooting left his press secretary, James Brady, permanently disabled from a head wound. A Secret Service agent was also seriously wounded. The gunman, twenty-five year old John Hinckley Junior, was sent to a mental hospital. His explanation for the attack was that he was trying to impress the actress Jodie Foster. We'll continue the story of the Reagan presidency next week.
重点解析
1.blame for 因……责备；责怪
He's not to blame for that.
这事不赖他。
2.promise to 许诺做；承诺
We can't promise to publish a reply as space is limited.
由于版面有限，我们不能保证把回复登载出来。
3.vote for 赞成；选举
I was going to vote for him, but I changed my mind and voted for Reagan.
我原本准备投他的票，后来却改变了主意，把票投给了里根。
4.not until 直到……才
It was not until 1911 that the first of the vitamins was identified.
直到1911年才发现了第一种维生素。
参考译文
欢迎收听VOA慢速英语之建国史话节目，我是史蒂夫·恩伯。在本期的系列节目中，我们来探讨1980年的总统竞选和罗纳德·里根的当选。1980年11月选举日前的几个月对总统吉米·卡特来说困难重重，许多美国人把国家的经济问题归咎于民主党，包括高通货膨胀和高失业率。许多人还指责他未能使伊朗释放52名美国人质。大约一年前，穆斯林极端分子占领了美国驻德黑兰大使馆，并把美国人当作囚犯。卡特总统敦促所有美国人，在危机期间支持美国政府。然而，几个月过去了，他在解救人质方面并未取得任何进展。伊朗拒绝进行释放人质的谈判，营救他们的努力失败了，总统显得无能为力。
卡特的政治弱点导致另一位民主党人泰德·肯尼迪与他竞争党内提名，肯尼迪是来自马萨诸塞州的一位有权势的参议员，也是前总统约翰·肯尼迪的兄弟。但在全国代表大会上，民主党提名卡特连任，同时提名他的副总统沃尔特·蒙代尔连任。肯尼迪选择不对他们进行大力支持，因此民主党在大选中出现分歧。然而，共和党团结在一位强有力的候选人——前演员、前加州州长罗纳德·里根的支持下。里根竞选副总统的搭档是乔治·H·W·布什，布什曾在国会任职，并担任中央情报局局长，他还曾代表美国担任驻中国和联合国大使。卡特政府无力解决人质危机和其他问题，使许多美国人感到自己的国家很软弱。里根承诺要让他们再次相信国家的力量。
卡特和里根在大选前几周就互相辩论。对一些人来说，卡特看起来很愤怒，充满防备，而里根则显得冷静，又深思熟虑。“下周二是选举日。下周二，你们所有人都将去投票站做决定。我想当你做出决定时，最好问问自己：你的生活比四年前好吗？你去商店买东西比四年前容易吗？这个国家的失业率比四年前多还是少？美国在全世界都像以前一样受人尊敬吗？“如果这些问题，你都回答了‘是’，那我认为你将投票给谁，就非常明显了。如果你不同意，如果你不认为我们在过去四年里所走的这条路，是你希望我们在今后四年里所遵循的路线，那我建议你另做一个选择。”在选举日，选民让里根大获全胜，这被称为“里根革命”就职日是1981年1月20日。罗纳德·里根成为美国第40任总统，他当时69岁，是有史以来最年长的当选总统。
在他的就职演说中，新总统谈到了他的政府的目标，一个主要目标是缩小联邦政府的规模。里根和其他保守派认为，美国的经济正因为高税收和不必要的法律而受到损害。他说，政府并不是解决问题的办法，政府就是问题所在。他敦促美国人加入他所谓的“新开始”。“几十年来，我们所遭受的经济弊病已经降临到我们身上。它们不会在几天、几周或几个月内消失。但它们会离开，会消失，因为我们美国人现在有能力——就像我们过去一样——做任何需要做的事情，来维护这最后、也是最伟大的自由堡垒。”里根于1911年出生在伊利诺伊州坦皮科的一个小社区。他是个好学生，也是个好运动员。夏天，他在河边当救生员，救了不少游泳者。他学的是经济学和社会学，是伊利诺伊州尤里卡学院游泳队的队员，这所学院是伊利诺伊州规模很小的一所学校。上大学期间，他对表演产生了兴趣。但他没有足够的钱去纽约或好莱坞学习成为一名演员。相反，他试着找到一份电台体育播音员的工作。
为了显示自己的能力，他录制了一段足球比赛的录音，宣布比赛的全部内容。但这场比赛是虚构的，他杜撰出所有的内容。爱荷华州达文波特的一家广播电台喜欢他的创造力，给了他一份工作。后来，“荷兰人”里根在爱荷华州得梅因的一家电台工作，随后搬到大城市芝加哥，他在那儿是芝加哥小熊队的播音员。在1937年3月，小熊队在加利福尼亚州进行春季训练。里根也跟随前往，他在那儿参加了华纳兄弟公司的一次试镜。华纳兄弟喜欢这位友好英俊的年轻人，给他提供了一份工作。事实上，在他的第一部电影里，他扮演了一个广播播音员。不久，罗纳德·里根成为好莱坞明星。他出演过很多电影，有些很好，有些很普通，但大多数影片都受到大众欢迎。在1940年的电影《美国英雄罗克尼》中，里根扮演了圣母大学学院的足球运动员乔治·吉普。人们常常把他临终时所说的一句话，与里根总统的任期相关联。
“让他们全力以赴，为了吉佩尔赢一回。我不知道自己会在哪里，但我会知道的，我会很高兴。”在《金石盟》中，里根扮演一个双腿都断了的截肢者。“兰迪！兰迪！兰迪！我剩下的人呢？兰迪……”“是的，德雷克！”“那是场意外。”“是的，亲爱的。但现在不要谈论它。”他记得《金石盟》这部电影，使他成为了明星。在二战期间，里根加入了当时的陆军航空队，拍摄过训练片。里根在好莱坞时，对政治产生了浓厚的兴趣。他一开始是位自由主义者，但他的政治观点变得越来越保守。他曾六次担任电影演员工会的主席，以反对电影界内任何支持共产主义的人而闻名。后来，在他担任总统期间，公众得知他也是联邦调查局的秘密线人。此时，好莱坞正在进行一场反对共产主义支持者的运动。
战后，里根带领美国演员工会度过了一段令演员和娱乐圈其他人感到恐惧的时期。这个时期，国会非美活动调查委员会非常具有影响力。其听证会产生了令人担忧的“黑名单”，这份黑名单极具伤害性，甚至是终结许多影视行业者职业生涯的罪魁祸首，如果这些人被认定是共产党人或亲共产主义派别的话。正是在黑名单的恐慌中，里根结识了他的第二任妻子南希·戴维斯。她的名字被错误地与另一个女演员的名字混淆了，导致其名字出现在黑名单上，她向里根寻求帮助以纠正这个错误。他们相爱了，并于1952年结婚。“这是一场重头戏，凯斯。”“海军上将叫我不要告诉你。”里根和南希·戴维斯一起出演了二战戏剧《海军悍妇》，剧中他扮演一名海军军官，而她则是一名深爱着这位军官的海军护士。“将军告诉我不用担心。”“我以为我们把问题解决了，你我之间的问题。”“这事没有完结，凯斯，除非你说不再关心我了。”
到20世纪50年代初，里根不再出现在电影中，而是转向了一种新的媒介——电视。“每周日晚上，通用电气都会在电视上为您带来最优秀的电影明星。喜剧片、魔幻片、浪漫中大名鼎鼎的演员。每周一位明星，贯穿整个夏天，就在通用电气剧院。”多年来，罗纳德·里根一直是通用电气公司的商业发言人，也是一系列戏剧节目的主持人。罗纳德·里根一生中的大部分时间都是民主党人。然而，到1960年，他为保守的共和党候选人发表演讲。在1966年，他自己成为候选人，以共和党人身份竞选加州州长。民主党人并不把他当回事，他们取笑他的一些电影角色，比如在喜剧《君子红颜》中，他的搭档是一只黑猩猩。但里根笑到了最后，他以将近一百万张选票赢得了选举。里根作为州长，因减少国家债务而受到赞扬，但因增税而受到批评。一些人还认为，他对大学校园里的学生骚乱反应过于强烈。但是，他在1970年赢得了连任。
1976年，里根竞选共和党总统候选人，他差一点从杰拉尔德·福特总统那里赢得提名。福特承认，大会代表们大力支持里根。接受提名后，福特邀请里根与他同台。里根受到的热烈欢迎，这清晰地表明了他在党内的未来。四年后，里根当选总统时，这个未来就此到来。里根就职当天，伊朗终于释放了被扣押444天的人质。沃尔特·克朗凯特暂停了哥伦比亚广播公司在电视上对就职典礼的报道，插播了这条丹·拉瑟主播带来的新闻。“沃尔特，根据我们在德黑兰机场的新闻来源，两架阿尔及利亚喷气式客机中的一架，就在几分钟前正在滑行。德黑兰机场的这次戏剧性事件一直延续，就像这52位勇士长期遭受的痛苦在今天上午一直持续一样。”“现在，我们竭尽所能，这就是目前美国人质的近况。他们仍在德黑兰，至少几分钟前还在机场，显然离他们飞往自由的航班还有一段时间，他们已经被囚禁444天。
“你能想象今天早上，人质在那架客机里会是什么样子吗？”作为总统，罗纳德·里根很快开始努力让国会减税，他还开始每周广播一系列节目。每周六，他都会评论美国人在生活和政治方面的发展，这些广播类似于20世纪30年代富兰克林·罗斯福总统所做的“炉边谈话”节目。里根与人交往的能力，为他赢得了“伟大沟通者”的绰号。他任职两个月后，罗纳德·里根在华盛顿一家酒店参加活动后离开时，遭到枪击。开始，没人意识到他遭到枪击。但他的左肺里有颗子弹，离心脏很近。在医院里，里根开玩笑地告诉医生们：“我希望你们都是共和党人。”他们成功地取出了子弹，他完全康复了。但枪击事件使他的新闻秘书詹姆斯·布雷迪头部受伤，终身残疾，一名特工也受了重伤。枪手是25岁的小约翰·辛克利，他被送往精神病院。他对这次袭击的解释是，他想给女演员乔迪·福斯特留下深刻印象。我们将在下期节目中继续讲述里根出任总统任期中发生的故事。
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