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Ronald Reagan on Principles & ValuesPresident of the U.S., 1981-1989; Republican Governor (CA) |
When Carter was president, the prevailing mood was malaise. Nobody could run the country, you just did the best you could not to make it worse. When Reagan became president, all of a sudden people started to believe things could be accomplished. The Soviet Union could be stared down and spoken about in plain language, unions could be forced to behave responsibly, taxes could be reduced in the hope that individuals would make smarter decisions for their dollars than the federal government. The feeling was that the president was very much in charge. Reagan understood that much of that was optimism. It did not mean that leaders ran around cheerful all the time, but that they found ways to build morale.
One might compare my task to that of a film editor who has to integrate a few hundred close-focus frames with 20,000 feet of gauzy long shots. But biography is sometimes freer than film to rise to such challenges.
Any quest for the real Dutch is bound to be an exercise in frustration. Hence the dullness of many of the books that have been written about him, their inability to capture his magic. Since Reagan has primarily been a phenomenon of the American imagination, he can only be re-created by an extension of biographical technique.
"Dutch is days away from publication. but in the meantime, its publisher, Random House, is guarding copies zealously, party for fear of a controversy about Mr. Morris's writing style, which employs an unconventional technique that disturbs historians and former Reagan officials who have heard about it.
Simply put, Mr. Morris has invented a character: himself. For literary purposes, the author, 59, has essentially transformed his own life. revised his age, birthplace, identity and resume to become a Zeligesque narrator who is a Reagan contemporary."
NY Times review, "Is Dutch flawed by Mr. Morris's technique? To judge from the book's extensive notes, it in no way distorts the record of Mr. Reagan's life, only the viewpoint from which it is told."
Dutch, 81 years old, stepped to the podium to give a short speech of thanks. "God bless, the United States of America." He said it so reverently that I wondered if love for country was not Reagan's one and only passion.
Afterward, in the receiving line, he took my hand and nodded with patent lack of recognition. Yet the following afternoon, his retirement chief of staff called to say that Reagan had remarked, "I saw Edmund in the reception line. I think he is waiting for me to die before he publishes his book."
Even in his dotage, he had seen something in my gaze that I did not want to acknowledge.
I've spoken of the Shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.
My friends, we did it. we made the City freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all not bad, not bad at all. And so, goodbye. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."
"What you see is what you get," several of his intimates had warned me, when I asked about his hidden depths. Nevertheless, I could not believe how little one got and how shallow those depths appeared to be. At 75, he was taciturn much of the time, conducting meetings with only the barest of introductory remarks, which he would read from typed cards. When he was asked direct questions, he would refer again to his cards, and if there was nothing there to help him, he would smile, shrug, and let Shultz or Regan answer.
Poor decent, dull Walter Mondale realized Reagan [was unbeatable] when he debated him, and was famously rolled for trying to raise the age issue. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,“ Reagan promised. Even Mondale had to laugh.
Americans favored Reagan because for four years he’d kept, or fought to keep, all his campaign promises. He had cut taxes, harnessed government, revived the economy, freed the entrepreneur, and cursed the ungodly. The ship of state was realigned, empowered, larger, prouder-and for those reasons less considerate of people who sailed steerage, or of powers that got in its way.
Isn't our choice really one of up or down? Down through statism, the welfare state, more and more government largesse, accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty and ultimately totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with an orderly society.We don't celebrate Dependence Day on the Fourth of July. We celebrate Independence Day.
They reached George Washington University Hospital in three-and-a-half minutes. Reagan made himself get out and walk toward the emergency-room door. Just inside, out of public sight, his knees buckled.
[He was wheeled into surgery] with his wit intact: “Honey, I forgot to duck,” “Who’s minding the store?” and-to the solemn company costumed in surgical greens-“Please tell me you’re Republicans.”
The President’s chest was closed at 5:24 PM. He had “sailed through” surgery, the hospital announced, and was an “excellent physical specimen.” On April 11, the President was well enough to walk out of the hospital.
