President Ronald Reagan
X Reagan(1998) This four-and-one-half hour biography is not among the best of American Experience’s “The Presidents.” With Edmund Morris, author of an unsatisfactory official biography of President Reagan, as a major commentator, Reagan finds it easier to portray Reagan’s accomplishments than to probe inside Reagan, the man. Perhaps this is because, as Reagan’s son Ron states, “No one understood his dad.”
The story of how a handsome, gifted sports announcer gravitated to Hollywood, marriage, and a WW II military career at a film studio near his home is well told. Prolific in B-grade movies, Reagan also, during the post-war House Un-American Activities, was the anti-Communist president of the Film Actor’s Guild. After his first marriage failed, he soon met starlet Nancy Davis, who became his wife and the most important person in his life.
Reagan’s post-Hollywood years representing GE provided a handsome income, visibility, and reason to polish a pro-capitalism and individualism script which prepared for a gradual transformation from registered Democrat to conservative Republican. His tremendously successful fund-raising speech for Goldwater in 1964 led to his candidacy in the California gubernatorial election two years later. He soundly defeated Governor Pat Brown, who had trounced Richard Nixon four years earlier.
Reagan did well during his two terms, demonstrating an ability, on occasion, to be flexible. The next stage he sought was the presidency. Barely missing the nomination in 1976, he won handily over President Carter four years later. Perhaps his greatest success, as president, was to make Americans proud to be Americans, after the Rust-Belt seventies in which impeachment, inflation, recession, foreign humiliation, then stagflation made Americans wonder whether our best years were behind us.
For me his most impressive success, despite several foreign missteps including Iran-Contra, was his bold policy towards communism and the Soviets. This documentary ably presents his: ‘zero option’ on Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe; castigation of the ‘evil empire;’ Guildhall speech in which he predicts the collapse of communism into the ash heap of history; relationship with Gorbachev that quickened the end of the Cold War; and retraction of the ‘evil empire’ remark as he chatted with Gorbachev in Moscow Square.
Coverage of President Reagan’s domestic record is less satisfactory. His success in ramming through ‘supply side’ tax cuts, after his attempted assassination, is well documented. His steadfast support for Paul Volker’s Draconian monetary policies deserves kudos. Little focus, however, is given to massive budget deficits, subsequent tax increases, and a tripling of the national debt under Reagan’s presidency.
Overall, I have the impression that Reagan’s White House spin masters would be highly pleased with this documentary. Once, when ABC produced a severely negative five-minute news piece on Reagan, an ABC correspondent apprehensively mentioned this to a White House press aide. His response: ‘We loved it. People are less attracted by words than pictures and the pictures of Reagan were great.’
The same might be said of this documentary. Reading a transcript, one would get a reasonably balanced picture of a president who, while a ‘Great Communicator’’,’ highly likeable, and able to pursue simple principles, was also often fuzzy on details, capable of fantasizing about serious matters, and, perhaps, indifferent to specifics that should concern a president. In watching the documentary, I am reminded of Reagan’s famous line from King’s Row: “Where’s the rest of me?”
The Reagan Years: In Pursuit of the American Dream (1988) Captures much of the mood, with some neat video asides on our actor-president.
