"I agreed to do that role if I could portray a guy who chose optimism as a revolutionary act." - John Cusack
"They look at me and they see themselves." - Ronald Reagan
"He didn't know anybody by name. He didn't even know his own HUD Secretary, Sam Pierce. He called him Mr. Mayor when he met him one time. I mean, a man like that who is so unfamiliar with the individuals he has to deal with, you would think was an idiot but he wasn't because Ronald Reagan knew one person and... this person is the American people." - Chris Matthews
About a year ago, thanks to Ronald Reagan, I inadvertently started a firestorm on my facebook page. I had been listening to the audiobook of "My Father At 100" by Ron Reagan. He accidentally refers to his father as "the 44th president of the United States." That would make his father Barack Obama....who is about 3 years younger than Ron Reagan. I thought this was pretty funny so I posted it on my facebook page. First the left started in on all the evils of Reagan. Then the right chimed in about how Reagan was the greatest president ever. It shows what an impact Reagan had that he inspired that emotional of a response over 20 years after he left office.
For me, I'll always have affection for Reagan. I'm a president geek and he's the very first one I can remember. This is the first president where I can remember the events that happened in his administration. (Even if I do have the more kid-friendly "Weekly Reader" version in my head.) Love him or hate him....rarely any middle ground where Reagan is concerned....Ronald Reagan was the most recent "game-changer" president. His administration has set the tone for the past 3 decades.
Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911 in Tampico, IL. He was the second son to Jack and Nelle Reagan. The apartment where he was born is surprisingly spacious. (You could probably fit Grant's birthplace inside it.) The buildings are all right next to each other. Nelle and a neighbor used to pass their infants back and forth through a window if one of them had to go run an errand.
The Reagan family moved frequently, almost once a year during Reagan's early childhood. This was largely due to Jack's alcoholism. Jack lost his job in Chicago because of an arrest for public drunkenness. When Reagan was 11, he came home and found his father had passed out in the snow. (When I visited his childhood home I kept thinking "Is THIS the spot where Reagan found his dad?")
Reagan was quite intelligent. He taught himself how to read at 5. In elementary school he was a straight A student. He had an eidetic (usually known as "photographic") memory. He was able to easily memorize passages of text that he read or speeches that he heard. (Some speeches that he'd only heard once he could recite from memory decades later.) He skipped second grade. Along with frequently being a new kid, being the youngest in class did not help is social life. He was frequently beaten up by bullies on the way home from school.
At age 10 the Reagans moved to Dixon. While they would change houses, the Reagan family would remain in Dixon for the rest of his childhood. Reagan considered it his hometown.
Reagan was an adept swimmer and spent multiple summers as the lifeguard by the Rock River. He would mark a notch on a piece of wood every time he saved a swimmer from drowning. By the end of his tenure the total was 77. 30 years later, as governor, Reagan proved the life-guarding habits never really go away. He was hosting a party at the Governor's Mansion. Keeping an eye on the pool, he noticed that one of the girls had been under water a little too long, and dove in the water to save her.
After high school he went to the tiny Eureka College. Reagan's college grades were mediocre. He was more interested in playing football, even though he wasn't particularly good at it. At one college rally against their unpopular president (who was talking about making budget cuts) Reagan had his first experience speaking before a crowd and feeling like he really connected to them.
After graduation, even though it was in the middle of the Great Depression, Reagan got a job right away as a sports broadcaster for a radio station in Iowa. He would describe games on the air as if he was seeing them in person, even though he was really just getting telex updates in the radio studio.
Reagan's radio job briefly took him to Los Angeles, and he managed to get a screen test. He was signed on to Warner Brothers Studio for a 7 year contract.
If it weren't for his political career, odds are today you would not have heard of Ronald Reagan unless you were a film buff, or liked shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Film Sack. When Reagan had top billing, it was usually in a B movie. When he was in an A movie, he tended to play the best friend, or the best friend's best friend. My favorite is in "Dark Victory." When Bette Davis's character is really in trouble, she goes off and gets drunk with Ronald Reagan.
Probably Reagan's most iconic movie performance is as George Gipp in "Knute Rockne All American." The line "win one for the Gipper" later became a rallying cry in Reagan's political campaigns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CCwxMvXPZo
If you ever do decide to see the movie, just start at 30 minutes in, that's when Reagan shows up, and stop the movie 15 minutes later, that's when Reagan has his last scene. The whole rest of the movie is a yawn fest.
It's also interesting to note that in the 50-plus movies Reagan made, only once did he play a villain. That was in the 1964 production of "The Killers." He was miserable the whole time.
Reagan married first wife Jane Wyman in 1940. Their first child Maureen was born in 1941. Her nickname was "Mermie." (Just letting you know in case you read the Reagan diaries, and don't spend hours wondering why Ethel Merman kept visiting the White House.) In 1945 they adopted a son, Michael.
1949 was Reagan's "Job" year. Jane Wyman left him. Her career was really starting to take off. She'd win an Oscar that year for her performance in "Johnny Belinda." Reagan's career wasn't doing very well. To make matters worse, he broke his leg. However, "Then along came Nancy Davis and saved my soul."
Nancy Davis was born Anne Robbins in New York City on July 6, 1921. Her parents divorced not long after her birth. Nancy spent a good chunk of her early childhood moving around with her actress mother, Edith Luckett. Her mother eventually married the highly conservative doctor Loyal Davis, who adopted Nancy.
In 1949 Nancy was just getting started with her Hollywood career. Hollywood was in the middle of a Red Scare. The Soviet Union became a nuclear power and China became communist. Nancy saw her name on a list of communist sympathizers. Nancy knew it must be a mistake. She wanted to clear her name, plus it gave her an excuse to meet up with the handsome president of the Screen Actor's Guild. While they both initially used the excuse of an "early call" in the morning, just in case they didn't hit it off....things went well. They enjoyed hearing each other's stories, and their political views were similar. Many, inaccurately, have attributed Reagan's political shift to the right to his wife. However, despite the fact that he had voted for FDR 4 times and even campaigned for Truman, his growing anti-communism and frustration with taxes, started years before he met Nancy. One thing I found amusing at the Reagan Boyhood Home was how my tour guide was amused how anyone could think tiny little Nancy was a Communist. And while I can't picture the right wing icon as a communist....she's not one to be underestimated. The Shakespeare line "Though she be but little, she is fierce" could have been written for her.
The Reagans married on March 4, 1952. Actor William Holden was the best man. They were discreet about the wedding, not even any family members were invited, due to Nancy's pregnancy. Patricia Reagan, who later changed her name to Patti Davis, was born in October of that year. Ronald Prescott Reagan would be born in 1958.
In the 50's, with his movie prospects drying up, Reagan worked more on television. From 1954-1962 he was host of the General Electric Theatre. When Ron Reagan was little he used to get frustrated trying to talk to his father in the TV, thinking he'd be able to talk back.
Reagan also became a spokesman for GE and would travel around the country giving speeches, which they allowed him to write himself. Reagan became so popular, his speaking engagements began to be booked years in advance.
By 1960 Reagan was ready to come out as a Republican, but Richard Nixon convinced him it would be more useful to have Reagan's support as a Democrat. In 1962, finally registered as a Republican, Reagan supported Nixon in Nixon's doomed gubernatorial campaign against Pat Brown. In 1964 he campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
At this point Reagan had all sorts of Republican backers clamoring for him to run for office. Reagan gave up acting for good in 1965, and began to campaign for Governor of California. 4 years after Nixon's defeat, Reagan defeated incumbent Governor Pat Brown. He was sworn in after midnight on January 2, 1967. Why such an odd time? It was the time recommended by Nancy Reagan's astrologer. As a First Lady, Nancy Reagan would continue to insist on changes to Reagan's schedule (including important events like meetings with leaders from other countries) based on what her astrologer said.
While Reagan was not new to the political arena, this was his first time in elected office. Most books about Reagan bring up the fact that at the time, if the state of California had been an independent country, it would have the 6th largest economy in the world. Sacramento was where Reagan figured out his own governing style. Quite a few of Reagan's staff members in the White House had been with him since Sacramento.
It was a particularly turbulent time in California's history. Urban riots were exploding all over. Some credit the Watts riot in 1965 as a factor for the rise of the conservatives in the late 60's. There was also massive amounts of protesting, especially by students on college campuses, against the Vietnam War.
Reagan did not look kindly on the anti-war moment. He commented "A hippie is someone that who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah." He viewed the college protesters as ungrateful brats who not only were squandering their own education, but interfering with the education of others, a common viewpoint among American conservatives. The protesters saw Reagan as a stern ogre.
Reagan used first the California Highway Patrol to stop protests at Berkeley. He then had Berkeley occupied for two weeks by the National Guard. He notoriously commented "If there has to be a bloodbath, let's get it over with." Given this combative history with the counter-culture, it makes the following story all the more surprising.
In 1974 Governor Reagan was in Los Angeles, in the broadcast booth for Monday Night Football. That same evening, John Lennon showed up as well. John Lennon, not much of a sports fan in general, admitted he did not understand how the game worked. According to Frank Gifford: "Governor Reagan had his arm around John Lennon and he was explaining American football to him. Only on Monday Night Football would you get those two guys, who were poles apart, united."
Reagan's other major focus as governor was reducing the state budget. Although he found as governor (as he'd later find out as president) just how difficult it is to cut programs from a budget. The combination of spending cuts, and a tax increase, resulted in a budget surplus. Reagan opted to have the surplus be refunded to Californians as a tax rebate.
Reagan's tenure as governor was also when he started to get a better feel for international affairs. Reagan wasn't a fan of travel, it didn't help that he was afraid of flying. Except for one trip to England for a movie role, he'd never left North America. Nixon changed that. Most importantly, he sent Reagan as a special envoy to Taiwan around the time that Nixon was going to China.
Reagan's first attempt to run for president was in the 1968 election. He later admitted that even he thought it was too soon. In 1976, Reagan challenged Ford for the Republican nomination. Reagan gave Ford a run for his money. (And Ford never really forgave him for it.) Although Ford ultimately got the nomination, at the convention he had the vote of 1,187 while Reagan had 1,070. When Ford officially won the nomination, he invited Reagan to come down and speak. Reagan improvised a speech (that never mentioned Ford at all) about how he had written a letter for a time capsule and how the people who read the letter 100 years in the future, would know whether nuclear war had ever happened, and whether "they have the freedoms that we have known..." With that short speech, Reagan completely upstaged Ford, and paved the way to his candidacy in 1980.
President Carter's campaign was plagued with bad luck: an energy crisis, a hostage crisis, stagflation. He also had not helped himself with such political missteps as the "malaise speech." Although Reagan won in a landslide in 1980, at the time it was more a vote against the Carter administration. Reagan's victory brought several new Republicans to Congress. Among the 1980 freshman class were: Dan Quayle, Alfonse D'Amato and Arlen Specter.
Reagan's style of governing is usually called "hands off." He was interested in the big picture and big ideas and preferred to leave the details to his staff. The heart of the administration was "the troika." Pretty much instead of one chief of staff, Reagan had 3. Edwin Meese, from the Sacramento days, and James Baker, campaign manager for Gerald Ford and George Bush....pretty much divvied up the Chief of Staff duties according to their strengths. Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Deaver, also a Californian, worked almost as a sort of public relations position, and was the one in charge of dealing with Nancy Reagan, that alone was a full-time job. Deaver, Meese and Baker became known as "The Troika" and were the main driving force behind Reagan's first term.
Reagan didn't have patience for long meetings on policy, often doodling or even nodding off during them. Also, unlike predecessors like Johnson, Nixon and Carter, he liked having an 8 hour day, although he would bring briefings back to the residence with him after hours. Sometimes the staff would get creative with the briefings. The CIA made short films to get Reagan up-to-date on other countries.
Just two months into his first term on March 30, 1981, a man named John Hinckley Jr., attempting to get actress Jodie Foster's attention, fired a gun at Reagan. (Ron Reagan would later comment that he found it creepy just how strong a resemblance John Hinckley bore to Mark David Chapman, who had assassinated John Lennon just months earlier.) A bullet hit a secret service agent, a police officer, and Press Secretary James Brady. A bullet also ricocheted off the armored car and hit Reagan in the chest. (Later Reagan would write in his diary, in the understatement of the century, "Getting shot hurts.")
When the shots were fired, secret service agent Jerry Parr shoved Reagan into the car. Reagan initially thought the severe pain in his chest was a result of a broken rib. However when Parr noticed that Reagan was coughing up blood, he decided instead of going to the White House, the best option was to take Reagan to George Washington University Hospital. Reagan managed to walk into the hospital on his own, and then collapsed.
The Reagan administration did its best during the crisis to downplay just how seriously injured the president was. Reagan wound up losing 40% of his blood. It is a testament to the skill of his doctors, and how far modern medicine advanced since the bad old days of President Garfield, that Reagan survived. It also showed just how much the Secret Service learned from their mistakes during the Kennedy assassination.
Reagan famously managed to get in a few one-liners in the middle of the crisis. He commented to the surgeons "I hope you're all Republicans." The liberal Democrat chief surgeon responded "Mr. President, today we're all Republicans." Ron Reagan commented that one reason his father felt the need to make jokes during that situation, was he was thoroughly embarrassed at having to inconvenience that many people....which is about as classic a Midwestern response as you can get.
On the first day that the hospital allowed visitors from outside Reagan's immediate family, he was visited by Democrat Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. While Reagan and O'Neill were usually at odds politically, they had a friendly relationship. According to the book "Rawhide Down", "he grabbed the president's hand and kissed his head. Then the Speaker knelt and they recited the Twenty-third Psalm...Speaking through tears, O'Neill said 'God bless you Mr. President. We're all praying for you." Reagan thought his life had been spared for a reason, and that reason was to save the world from nuclear Armageddon.
A little over a month later, Reagan was healthy enough to be able to address Congress. He took full advantage of the situation to help push through his economic plan. I imagine Lyndon Johnson would have been hugely jealous: all the political capital of an assassination, without being beholden to the previous administration.
As for Reagan's economic plan, Americans are still deeply divided over how successful it was. The Left argues that under Reagan the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. They'd say that Reagan's tax cuts combined with a large increase of military spending left the United States with massive amounts of debt. The Right would argue that Reagan's policies help lead to the economic prosperity of the 1990's that ultimately lead to a budget surplus.
In his first term Reagan maintained his hard line stance against the Soviet Union. Reagan did not believe in detente, as he saw the Cold War as something that could be won. Regardless, thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, detente was pretty much dead by the time Reagan came in office. Although except for the occasional speech, like in 1983 when he called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" Reagan found it difficult to have any sort of negotiations with the Soviet Union. It's hard to negotiate with unhealthy old men that keep dropping dead. From 1981-1985 Breshnev, Andropov, and Chernenko all died.
The 1984 election was a stacked deck from the beginning. It's also the very first one I remember. Early on my Mom asked me "What name do you like best? Mondale, Glenn or Hart?" I chose Hart. From then on the family joke was that Gary Hart was "my" candidate. My parents REALLY had fun teasing me once he got caught having an affair. He was the first adulterer I backed but he sure wouldn't be the last.
Democratic candidate Walter Mondale knew from the beginning that his odds against the popular Ronald Reagan were not good. Among many factors, Reagan was highly telegenic and a charming speaker. While Mondale would make jokes in private (like how most voters still thought "Mondale" was a suburb of Los Angeles...) he lacked charm in his public speaking. Television had never been kind to Mondale at all. One of his first television appearances was in the 1960's when he was a new U.S. Senator. A Washington D.C. channel had a show about meeting the new senators. Mondale was interviewed with his wife and 3 small children. As the family was being introduced, two of the children dove under the table. During the interview you can see the table shaking. Mondale's luck with television never really improved. However, even though Mondale knew he was probably fighting a losing battle, he saw it as an opportunity to make his point of view known, and perhaps that would affect the 2nd Reagan administration.
The most exciting part of the Mondale campaign was his vice-presidential candidate. I vividly remember being in the kitchen, and my normally even-keeled father coming in very excited. "MONDALE NOMINATED A WOMAN!!!" Before Sarah Palin, there was Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be a vice-presidential candidate for one of the major parties.
The only time Reagan's campaign looked like it might be in trouble was during the 1st debate with Mondale. Mondale was well-prepared, particularly from all the debates with other Democratic candidates during the primaries. Reagan had been kept pretty insulated from any spontaneous speaking by his staff. He was also 4 years older, and had survived an assassination attempt....in that first debate, it showed. Reagan came off as confused and out-of-it. However, by the second debate he was better prepared, and was popping of classic Reagan one-liners like: "I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." (Even Mondale laughed for that one.)
On election night, 1984, I was planted in front of the TV with my Fisher Price Sesame Street playhouse. All my Sesame Street characters were voting for president as I watched the results. (I'm pretty sure Bert voted for Reagan.) The next day when I woke up the first thing I asked my mother was "Did Mondale win?" Mondale had only won his home state of Minnesota. Reagan had one of the biggest landslides in the history of the American presidency.
He also had a tremendously burnt out staff. Some turnover is normal in any presidential administration, but it's unusual for a president to lose all his key staff members at the same time. In some ways, with Reagan, what you saw was what you got. The way he behaved during a speech...he was genuinely like that all the time....upbeat, full of stories, genial... However, he was nearly impossible to get close to. Really the only person he was really close to was Nancy, and even she could only go so far. Staff members felt unappreciated (didn't help that he often got their names wrong, even people that had worked for him since the 1960's). They very rarely got a sign of approval. It could also be very hard to gauge what Reagan's actual opinion was. I'm sure his casual work ethic didn't help. For one economic summit, Reagan hadn't read his briefings the night before because "The Sound of Music was on."
As for the troika, Mike Deaver left for the private sector. Edwin Meese was appointed Attorney General. Chief of Staff James Baker and Secretary of Treasury Donald Regan opted to swap jobs. So the first problem was Donald Regan attempted to do by himself what it took 3 people to do in the previous term. Also didn't help that he was an egomaniac, had a staff composed entirely of yes-men, and was more interested in kissing up to Reagan than protecting the administration. This was when really bad choices like Iran-Contra began to happen.
When I went to the Nixon Library, Nixon's version of Watergate was to blame it all on his aides. I found the statement doubly troubling because either A. He was lying. Or B. He could not keep control of his own staff. In the case of Nixon, I think it was A. However for Reagan and Iran-Contra, I think it's B.
It was never clear how much Reagan was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. There was never any clear evidence to indict him. Basically what happened was, there was a large group of American hostages in Lebanon. Some of Reagan's staffers had the idea to sell weapons to Iran, at an inflated price, in exchange for hostages. The profits from the arms sale would go to fund the anti-communist group the Contras in Nicaragua. So pretty much not only is this illegal and unethical in all sorts of ways....not a single hostage was released.
Reagan most likely knew about it. However on Planet Reagan where the sun always shines and he was always the hero, there was no way he could compute that he did something illegal or immoral. There were a lot of hard realities that Reagan seemed unable to grasp. He insisted that the rising amount of homeless in the United States were "homeless by choice." He didn't even mention the word AIDS publicly until 1987 even thought it had been a growing epidemic since his first term. Nancy Reagan should get some credit for using the example of Rock Hudson, a friend of the Reagans, to help humanize the disease. Ron Reagan, who had been a ballet dancer, had a lot of friends with AIDS and also attempted to educate his father. Biographer Lou Cannon suspected that a lot of crises like AIDS and acid rain, Ronald Reagan just figured would fix themselves or eventually just go away.
Reagan's big success in his second term was improving relations with the Soviet Union, and more. The decrepid old man premier in the Soviet Union had been replaced by 54 year old Mikhail Gorbachev. While Reagan and Gorbachev differed a great deal on ideology, they both shared a tremendous optimism, and a desire to create a safer world. Each leader became tremendously popular in the other one's country. Besides having a warmer relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Soviet Union would sign an arms reduction treaty.
The big question I had when I started reading about Reagan was: how much did Reagan have to do with ending the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1989, the year Reagan's administration ended, the Berlin Wall fell. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I was in 6th grade in the winter of 1989. I vividly remember staring at the map of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, and wondering about them. I even did a report on Yugoslavia, where my ancestors came from. I was floored when less than half a year later, the Wall was down and it was a totally new environment.
I'm sure there are some that will give Reagan most or all of the credit for ending the Cold War.....along with walking on water and driving steel faster than John Henry....Reagan has become that much of a mythic figure. A lot of historians will say that every U.S. president in the Cold War should get some of the credit. Russian scholar Vladislav Zubok believes that Gorbachev should get more credit than any U.S. president, but also that Gorbachev's relationship with Reagan did more for ending the Cold War than the Arms Race.
Reagan almost disappeared immediately after he was succeeded by his Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1989. His last public appearance was in 1993 for Richard Nixon's funeral. In 1994 Reagan wrote a public letter disclosing that he had Alzheimer's Disease. There has been some speculation over whether Reagan was beginning to show symptoms of Alzheimer's while he was still president. I believe he probably did. However, with such a slow moving and insidious disease like Alzheimer's, it is all too easy at first, for denial, rationalization, and for loved ones and co-workers to compensate without even realizing it.
Reagan final decline happened in 2004. Right before he died, his eyes opened and he stared at Nancy intently. He died on June 5, 2004. A product of Hollywood to the last, I'd highly recommend watching his funeral.
Reagan's legacy is still a work in progress. The biggest impact was all of American politics, Republicans and Democrats alike, shifted to the right. Reagan's ideas and values continued to be promoted, most prominently in the 1994 Republicans in Congress, and President George W. Bush. American politics will continue to be dominated by Reagan, either trying to imitate him, or defining themselves against him, until the next presidential gamechanger comes along.
Resources
"My Father at 100" by Ron Reagan - This was the book I started with. I figured as Ron is a liberal, but he loves his dad, he wouldn't claim that Reagan could walk on water OR caused all the evil in the world. Solid book, and I also found it to be a really useful guide for places to go and books to read if you want to learn about Reagan more in depth.
"Dutch" by Edmund Morris - The author of the Teddy Roosevelt trilogy of biographies, I'm convinced that Morris temporarily lost his mind while he was writing this book. Reagan is very elusive and notoriously difficult to write about. Morris figured such an unusual person required an unusual biography, and makes himself a fictional character in the biography. All the Reagan quotes in the book are accurate. I found the book an interesting, but ultimately failed, experiment.
"The Reagan Diaries" edited by Douglas Brinkley - The lack of detail was both a bit of a relief (after reading Carter's)...and rather frustrating. It is fascinating to see the administration from his perspective. For example every time the deficit comes up, he blames Congress.
"Ronald Reagan : The Role of a Lifetime" - If you want a thorough balanced analysis of Reagan's character and presidency this is the place to go. Lou Cannon is a journalist who first followed Reagan when he was governor of California, and was working for the Washington Post during Reagan's presidency.
"The President's Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity" by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy - This is a fantastic resource on the interactions between the presidents and ex-presidents from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush. Informative and so much fun!
"Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev" by Vladislav Zubok - A history of the Soviet Union from the perspective of the Soviets. A lot of the information is new thanks to the declassification of KGB papers. As a child of the Cold War, this book had a wonderful "Quiet on the Western Front" sort of feel, to hear the story of the Cold War from the point of view of the "Evil Empire."
"Ronald Reagan: American Experience" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/reagan/