NEW BOOK DEMOLISHES REAGAN MYTHS
By Christopher Ruddy
Jan. 30, 2001

Ronald Reagan was simply an amiable dunce who lucked out to become president of the United States.

Though possessing little intelligence, he became a front man for right-wing Republicans.

He did not control his presidency, but was skillfully manipulated by aides and his wife. His success was due to a fortuitously booming economy and the fact the Soviet Union began to crumble because Mikhail Gorbachev was a champion of democracy.

A nice old man, "Dutch" was more of a mystery than anything else.

Such is the perceived establishment wisdom about Ronald Reagan - a perception that the New York Times and modern-day historians would like to perpetuate.

No matter how ardently his closest aides tried to explain that Reagan was indeed informed, intelligent and in charge, few in the major media would buy it.

Reagan, they claimed, liked to take frequent naps, watch TV at home in his pajamas, and play with horses on his ranch.

Recently a treasure trove of documents was discovered that demolishes such myths about Reagan. These papers were found stacked in cardboard boxes at the Reagan library and were never reviewed by historians, including his authorized biographer, Edmund Morris.

These documents, written in Reagan's own hand, span more than three decades and prove that the entire conventional (read "left-wing") thinking about Reagan was 100 percent false.

Reagan, the documents prove, was highly intelligent, extremely well informed on a staggering number of issues, a gifted writer, and a man of foresight and vision.

Many of these documents have just now been released in the form of a new book: "Reagan in His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America," edited by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson (Free Press, 2001).

While "Reagan in His Own Hand" offers original Reagan writings from his high school years until his final note to America upon learning of his Alzheimer's disease, the bulk of the documents deal with the years between 1975 and 1980, the period between his governorship of California and his presidency.

During that period Reagan wrote a syndicated newspaper column and a regular radio commentary. It was widely believed, even by close associates, that Reagan's work was ghostwritten, as were his speeches. They weren't. Reagan wrote almost everything himself.

I had a sneak preview of this book last summer when I visited Martin Anderson at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

For more details, go here.

Martin, who served as President Reagan's Domestic Policy Adviser and worked closely with Reagan for more than three decades, let me in on what was then a secret about the finding of these documents and told me that a book was being prepared for release this year.

I must confess I found the new information startling and turned upside down my own views on Reagan.

While Reagan was a man of extraordinary charm, wit and integrity, he was not super intelligent, I believed. He gained success, I believed, through a Hollywood persona and certain Zen-like qualities that attracted others. Still, I believed he was a person of deep principles and the result was, for America, good.

But my take on Reagan was wrong. Anderson proved to me that Reagan was in fact a genius who worked extremely hard his entire life. He perhaps was the most informed man to sit in the Oval Office in recent times.

The bulk of the material in "Reagan in His Own Hand" are manuscripts Reagan wrote for his five-minute radio commentaries that were broadcast throughout the nation. He gave more than a thousand such commentaries, and just 670 of these written in Reagan's hand were saved. (Even more documentary evidence of Reagan's brilliance would have been saved had Reagan not tossed so many of his handwritten drafts in the wastebasket, as was his habit.)

Anderson showed me several original Reagan manuscripts, yellow sheets of legal notepad paper now protected in plastic.

Reading through one of them, it became clear to me that Reagan was a natural writer whose mind was highly organized. He wrote fluently and easily.

The book is true to these original manuscripts, printing reproductions of some of the actual manuscripts.

It is amazing to see how few mistakes Reagan made as he wrote.

Scratched-out words are Reagan's own edits. The book carefully includes all of Reagan's edits. As any writer can appreciate, Reagan had the ability to edit himself, a trait rare among writers. He also made relatively few edits. He typically wrote only one draft, another amazing feat.

Why, then, would Edmund Morris explain Reagan's success as a great mystery and not attribute to him any great level of intelligence?

Anderson has an answer.

He believes that Reagan learned from an early age to hide his intelligence. He likens the situation to the smartest kid in the class who is usually the most disliked. Reagan wanted be liked, so he kept his mouth shut.

Reagan, Anderson notes, showed signs of extreme intelligence. By age 5 he had taught himself to read. By age 6 he was reading newspapers.

The documents show that Reagan, who was portrayed by the media as someone who didn't like to read, read voraciously, from all of the major papers to current and historical books, and even scholarly journals. He quoted from his readings all the time.

By writing these columns and commentaries himself, Reagan briefed himself on hundreds of issues, from marijuana legalization to abortion, taxes, Social Security, nuclear weapons - you name it, Reagan was on top of it.

Reagan's penchant for writing continued well into his White House years. To the surprise of some aides, Reagan himself wrote his first speech to the nation on the economy in 1981.

Nancy Reagan reports that he spent almost all of his time in the White House residence either reading or writing. He rarely watched television.

The documents show Reagan was fixated on several issues, notably national defense and the defeat of communism. More than 30 percent of his radio commentaries dealt with such issues. Reading "Reagan in His Own Hand," we see the shape of Reagan's thinking that led to his rally cry against the "Evil Empire" and his call for a missile defense shield.

Reagan, long before he entered the White House, predicted the demise of the communist system, which he called an "aberration." He saw this as possible as long as America remained strong. He had a clear vision and implemented it. It worked.

Another example of his foresight was his prediction of Margaret Thatcher's rise to prominence.

In 1979, Reagan wrote that he had recently met with Thatcher, the new British prime minister. Reagan remarked that Thatcher would "remind England of the greatness she knew during those dangerous days in WWII when alone and unafraid her people fought the battle of Britain it will be the Prime Minister the English press has already nicknamed 'Maggie.'"

Reagan's comments were made well before Thatcher proved herself as the Iron Lady during the Falklands War.

"Reagan in His Own Hand" is a refreshing book after almost a decade of presidential decadence.

Bill Clinton's former adviser Dick Morris recently revealed that Bill Clinton wanted to give his staff the impression he actually wrote a major speech. Morris described how he and Clinton hid up in the White House residence and found an old typewriter. There, Morris began writing drafts for Clinton. To give the air of authenticity and hoping that history might record he "wrote" the speech, Clinton rewrote Morris' drafts in long hand. How utterly cynical.

Ronald Reagan was the real McCoy. He said what he believed and wrote it just that way. He worked extremely hard, and the dividends paid off for America in a big way. Americans today and future generations will continue to owe Ronald Reagan a debt of gratitude.

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