Window into Reagan White House opened
If you’re interested in getting a closer look at Ronald Reagan, the man, movie star and president of the most powerful nation in the world for eight years, pick up a copy of an authorized biography written by Edmund Morris. “Dutch, a memoir of Ronald Reagan,” is 875 pages of the former president’s life, from his birth, his years as an actor, governor of California, through his somewhat turbulent years as president, to his personal, handwritten Nov. 5, 1994, letter when he revealed he is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Morris knew Reagan from his days as a lifeguard in Dixon, Ill., where they both lived as young boys. Morris reports that Reagan saved 77 people from drowning during those summers of his youth.
While the book offers a fascinating inside view of the Reagan White House years, you need to be forewarned if you plan to read it. Morris constantly injects his personal viewpoints throughout the book, including hundreds of paragraphs about his personal life and conversations with his son (who cares what his son thought about anything?). And his writing, in too many instances, is disjointed and difficult to follow.
Morris desperately needed an editor if he had any thought about improving the book. Yet, his ego (he is the privileged son of a wealthy family and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography on Theodore Roosevelt) does not allow him to chronicle the life and times of Reagan alone. Morris includes all kinds of trivial personal information about himself which makes the reader conclude the book should have been renamed, “Dutch and Edmund.”
After finishing a few chapters and wading through the Morris memoirs, I found I could skip all of the pages, and any paragraphs, which started out discussing anything about Morris. Using that self-editing technique, I found the remainder of the book to be very informative.
Reagan was, at the same time, both a complex and a simple man. He had deeply held beliefs, a few of which were not supported by facts. However, he could never be persuaded, by debate or research reports, to change his mind. He knew in his own mind that he was right. End of discussion.
Yet, Reagan was not stupid. He was a shrewd negotiator, meeting with Gorbachev and others in discussions on nuclear disarmament, citing facts, forcefully putting his arguments forward. And he knew how to use the power of the presidency.
Like any man, he had his disappointments, his failures, and his regrets. And, he was not immune to crisis. His years as president were not without incident, including being shot by John Hinckley Jr., the Iran-Contra scandal, colon cancer, the Challenger disaster, the Soviet missile shootdown of a Korean 747 airliner, and his visit to Bitburg Germany where Nazi soldiers were buried.
Reagan knew what he was doing when he pushed his Strategic Defense Initiative, known as Star Wars for its plan to use lasers from satellites to destroy nuclear missiles before they could reach their targets.
Reagan wanted to use American industrial power to bankrupt the former Soviet Union in a military-buildup race. Whether it was part luck, good timing with the arrival of Gorbachev, or coincidence, it worked.
In the book’s epilogue, Morris adds a final note, revealing that Reagan, the lifeguard, had saved his life 70 years ago by pulling him as he struggled, drowning, from the river in Dixon. A fact that Reagan apparently had forgotten long ago.
Both fascinating and sad, the book offers an interesting look inside the window at the White House, and the man known to his friends and family simply, and fondly, as Dutch.
Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is: mellis@heraldstandard.com.