The Wonder Years: Christopher Pearson Reviews 'Ronald Reagan'

By Christopher Pearson | Wednesday, November 19, 1997

Upon first encountering the name of King Lear's evil daughter Regan, some students mispronounce it as Ray-gun. My English teacher during my senior year of high school relished such opportunities. 'That's Ree-gun', he would correct, then quickly add 'Don't get your villains confused.'.

Yet it is not just English teachers sharing world views with Joan Baez who have regarded the 40th President with such disdain. During Reagan's two terms in office, most mainstream economists and political scientists objected to nearly every aspect of his administration. The three major networks aired daily segments decrying the 'greed' of the Reagan era. Time Magazine decided Gorbachev, not Reagan, was really behind the fall of Communism and declared the Russian Man of the Decade.

If anything, the dim assessment of Reagan by the academy and major media has only worsened since. Last year, the New York Times Magazine commissioned a group of historians led by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to evaluate the presidents in terms of their achievements in office. Reagan, they determined, should rank in the Below Average category, alongside such notable masters of presidential statecraft as Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison.

This type of establishment criticism appears almost laudatory, however, in the face of the attacks on Reagan from left-wing activists. 'War monger,' 'homophobe,' and 'bigot ' were just some of their choice epithets. And if feeling particularly outraged, they might shriek, 'Your wife is a flake and your movies suck.'

It is these estimations of the Gipper that Dinesh D'Souza attempts to challenge in Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader. Though Ronald Reagan is ostensibly a biography, D'Souza eschews the genre's characteristic obsession with minute details. He prefers, rather, to use his research as evidence to prove Reagan was a truly exceptional politician and president. Reagan's detractors, D'Souza argues, have wrongly disparaged Reagan's accomplishments because of their own personal prejudices. 'By any measure,' asserts D'Souza, 'his record is astonishing.' Indeed, 'Reagan,' D'Souza further maintains, 'was truly a great president whose achievement rivals that of Franklin Roosevelt'.

In support of his assertions, D'Souza marshals an array of evidence that, though in some cases familiar, is nonetheless impressive. Economically, Reagan's tenure is matched by few other periods in American history. During his successful run for President in 1980, Reagan, in accordance with his conversion to a then radical theory called supply-side economics, had campaigned for tax cuts to stimulate the flagging US economy.

Soon after his inauguration, Reagan deftly manipulated the legislative process and largely got the cuts that he wanted. Confident that this program would succeed if given time, Reagan counseled patience to the public throughout the grueling recession of 1982.

With his celebrated good humor, Reagan successfully avoided the media's aspersions on his policy as he promised things would get better. In 1983, after the last of his tax cuts had passed, they did. For the next seven years of the Reagan presidency, the economy grew at a convincing rate of 3.5 percent.

The stock market doubled as interest rates plummeted to less than 10 percent. The rampant inflation Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter was gone. All in all, this period would become the largest peacetime financial boom in US history.

Unimpressed by the data, Reagan's critics have alleged that Reagan era prosperity came at the expense of the downtrodden. Yet, as D'Souza notes, the poorest fifth of the population, the supposed losers of the 1980's, saw their average real incomes rise from $6,494 to $6,994 during this time.

Equally dubious, avers D'Souza, is the claim that the run-away deficit is the ruinous legacy of the Reagan years. Despite Reagan's defense buildup, the deficit, D'Souza calculates, actually decreased as a percentage of gross domestic product during his administration.

Even with all of Reagan's domestic achievements, his record on foreign affairs is, for D'Souza, the best demonstration of Reagan's greatness. Indeed, it was on Reagan's watch that the most significant world event of the last half century, the fall of the Soviet Union, occurred. This, D'Souza argues, was certainly no coincidence. He locates the Cold War's end firmly in Reagan's unique style of diplomacy and his hard-edged yet flexible foreign policy.

Reagan's singular vision of Communism, reflected in his description of the Soviets as an 'Evil Empire,' provided the rudder for his approach. Convinced of America's moral superiority, Reagan boldly maneuvered the US through a series of arms negotiations with his Russian counterpart Gorbachev and got the major concessions he thought most in his country's interest. The rapid Communist expansion allowed by previous presidents was not tolerated under Reagan's leadership as he successfully used the military to defend countries like Nicaragua and Grenada from Soviet-backed insurgencies.

Not only vital to containment of expansion, the vast martial force Reagan assembled also intimidated the Soviets, who struggled to keep pace with the Americans. Reagan's SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), or 'Star Wars' may have been ridiculed in the West, for example, but the USSR, whose opinion was the one that mattered, took seriously its military potential.

D'Souza strongly objects to the revisionist interpretation of Communism's fall that assigns Gorbachev the lead in breaking up the Soviet Empire, casting Reagan as a mere patsy. Quite the opposite is true, D'Souza asserts. It is only the Western intellectual class, so consistently wrong about the issues involved in the Cold War conflict through out the 1980's, who are now forced to view Gorbachev as a determined agitator for socialism's collapse. Gorbachev, though, never intended to end Communism. His perestroika and glasnost reforms were meant to save the Soviet Empire not destroy it. In further support of the case for Reagan's paramounce, D'Souza cites current admissions by some of Reagan's critics such as the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Casaroli, and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Both now acknowledge that Reagan's actions, in the words of Kissinger, 'marked the turning point' for Soviet collapse.

Although his focus is on the Reagan presidency, D'Souza also wants to show Reagan as a person, 'the man behind the mask,' not just as a public figure. As many of those who worked with him have attested, Reagan is a very enigmatic figure. He had an exceptional rapport with the American public but Reagan always kept his staff at arm's length. Even many of Reagan's family and closest friends felt distanced from him. D'Souza himself spent several years in the Reagan White House as a domestic policy analyst and understands these sentiments.

But D'Souza also sees Reagan as, in some ways, misunderstood. Many who came into contact with Reagan expected the same amicable persona in private that Reagan displayed in public. Reagan's reputation has suffered somewhat unfairly because he defied those expectations

Reagan's incongruity with another set of expectations, those concerning what a great leader should be, may account for the lack of appreciation shown Reagan's success in office. Although presidents frequently come from the ranks of former war heroes or distinguished Senators, Reagan was neither. He was an actor before he became a politician and starred in such otherwise forgettable films as Bedtime for Bonzo. He was not an intellectual, having graduated from Eureka College, an obscure liberal arts school in Illinois, with a C average. He favored a laid back governing style and enjoyed frequent naps in his office. In the minds of many, this is not the profile of a great president.

As D'Souza notes, however, Reagan's record, whatever Reagan's personal characteristics may be, should ultimately be the arbiter of his legacy. On that basis, Reagan is worthy of mention with presidents like FDR who managed to define their period of American history.

If our criteria for presidential greatness do not allow the recognition of a leader with a record like Reagan's, perhaps then, D'Souza suggests, those criteria warrant reevaluation.

The Wonder Years: Christopher Pearson Reviews 'Ronald Reagan'

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