Ronald Reagan and the Review

By Nathaniel Ward | Friday, June 11, 2004

When The Dartmouth Review distributed its first issue 24 years ago this week, it truly lived up to Dartmouth's motto, vox clamantis in deserto—a voice crying out in the wilderness. In early June 1980, conservatives seemed a dying breed, their leaders discredited by scandals and their ideas drowned out in the morass of revisionist academia. The paper was the only student newspaper in the United States that then identified itself as conservative.

— President-elect Reagan on the cover in 1980. —

By November, though, all that had changed. Ronald Reagan had been elected the nation's 40th president and the conservative revolution had begun in earnest. The Review proved not to be the last gasp of a dying philosophy but rather the advance guard of a far larger tendency in American politics.

Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 meant for the young Review, then having published only seven issues, that much of the nation—and indeed the campus—was on their side, that theirs was not a lonely battle. Professor Jeffrey Hart, in an issue published shortly after the 1980 election, hailed the Gipper's election as the beginning of "a new establishment in this country" [See TDR 11/7/1980]. In that issue's Week in Review, an article titled "On the Election," read simply, "Eeeeeeha!"

The actor-turned-politician long maintained a special relationship with the Review. The paper featured several interviews with top White House staff, and Regan's image graced the cover of the publication no less than three times during his stay in office.

The Review enthusiastically endorsed the President on campus, polling students on his initiatives and examining the critiques of his opponents.

The Reagan administration employed many Review staffers upon their graduation. Contributing Editor Peter Robinson '79 and Editor in Chief E. William Cattan, Jr. '83 both served as a speechwriters for the first term Reagan White House. Editor in Chief Dinesh D'Souza '83 signed on as President Reagan's Senior Domestic Policy Adviser in 1986.

The rise of Reagan conservatism clearly played a major role in the success of the Review. During the 1980s, the paper's staff was large, no doubt heartened by the optimism the President engendered and indeed by the courage he gave them to proclaim themselves conservative. This support allowed the paper to thrive.

By the time of his death last weekend at the age of 93, Ronald Reagan had become a near-mythical figure unremembered by most of our generation. He is, for most, the President between Carter and Bush. For most, it is enough to remember that he in no small measure restored faith in the presidency, helped end the Cold War, and revived America's economy.

To those of us at The Dartmouth Review, though, President Reagan remains a symbol of our struggle for what is right with Dartmouth and, more importantly, for what is right with America.

May he rest in peace.

Ronald Reagan and the Review

Article Tools

Related Articles