Ronald Reagan: The American Presidents Series: The 40th President, 1981-1989

The American Presidents Series are a collection of brief (usually around 150 pages) essay-style biographies of each of the presidents, published by Times Books. The series was edited by former JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. until his death in 2007, followed by former New Republic editor Sean Wilentz. Past volumes in the series have been written by distinguished historians such as H. W. Brands, Robert Remini or John Eisenhower. In recent years, the series has turned away from academics in favor of journalists as authors of the biographies, and sometimes this has resulted in the failure to appreciate the distinction between history and politics.The most recent biography in this series, a biography of a Ronald Reagan is a good example of this. The assignment of writing this volume was given to Jacob Weisberg, a former New Republic and Vanity Fair reporter. Weiserg is no fan of Ronald Reagan and does little to hide his dislike for his subject. For example, almost every chapter ends with some disparagement of Reagan, some catty or passive-aggressive snipe. The first chapter quotes a former girlfriend of Reagan's as claiming that he had "an inability to distinguish between fact and fantasy" and passes this off as some sort of valuable observation. Later chapters accuse Reagan of fabricating anecdotes in his speeches without knowing whether or not this is so, and other chapters accuse him of other fabrications. Weisberg blames Reagan's misunderstanding of Lebanon as the reason why US Marines were attacked there. Weisberg's description of Reagan's economic policy is really a debate in which the author expounds on his own opinion as to why Reagan was wrong, while acknowledging that the nation experienced a drop in inflation and interest rates. He gives the credit for this to Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. This isn't to suggest that Reagan isn't deserving of blame for the rise in government debt and deficits on his watch, but rather that as historian, this author ought to have approached the issue more objectively, such as was done by historian H. W. Brands in his recent bio Reagan: The Life.This pattern continues in later chapters as the author infers that the end of the cold war was really the fluky result of a combination of the Russians' belief that the SDI defense weapon was real and because of Mikhail Gorbachev's role as a new style of Russian revolutionary, not because of anything Reagan did. The author delights in recounting how Reagan nodded off during a speech given by the pope, and mocks Reagan's desire to end the nuclear threat, writing "but then Reagan was shot and woke up possessed of the idea that God had saved him for the purpose of preventing nuclear war." This is what passes for history in this volume. The author's final chapter blames Reagan for a variety of problems including the economic crash of 2008, which occurred 20 years after Reagan's last year in office and four years after his death.The line between politics and history can sometimes blur, but in this volume the author takes great license in substituting his opinions for any sort of objective historical account. Reagan had his imperfections, and he certainly deserves to be called out of his failure to reign in the size of government and of the debt and deficit after promising fiscal responsibility. But he also deserves credit for easing and ultimately ending cold war tensions, and for transforming a nation that had low morale and high inflation and interest rates at the commencement of his term into one of greater economic security. There is a reason why subsequent political generations seek to imitate and emulate Reagan, something that this author recognizes, and it's not because of a lack of significant accomplishments.It is disappointing to see such an esteemed institution like the American Presidents Series produce such a skewed account of the life and record of one of its subjects. Its reputation for fairness and historical objectivity has been tarnished in the process.

I was a reluctant reader of this book about a man of whose beliefs and actions I longed disapproved. But I find that the book provides valuable insights into the perplexing achievements of an average average man who was yet able to rise to the top, win the admiration and stir the imaginations of millions by his identification with the fundamental values of liberty and American individualism. Objective and informative in its reporting, the author seems at times mystified by Reagan's success, which he is compelled to catalog. The narrative of Reagan's interactions with Gorbachev is the highlight of the book, as of his life. The glaring inconsistencies between his words and actions and his capacity for willful forgetfulness raise profound questions regarding the appeal of political leaders, which we see now being played out in the puzzling popularity of Donald Trump. This book is not a commentary on Reagan's political or economic philosophy or a judgment of it. It is the story of a man told honestly and insightfully.

Jacob Weisbergs kurze Ronald Reagan Biographie informiert den Leser perfekt über die Person und das politische Vermächtnis des vierzigsten US Präsidenten. Dies macht das Buch zu einer perfekten Lektüre für politisch interessierte Leser welche die Umwälzungen in der ideologischen Ausrichtung der GOP unter Präsident Trump verstehen möchten.

This brief summary of Ronald Reagan’s life and presidency (154 pages of text) is sympathetic to him in many ways but also points to his weaknesses in the White House. Glaring inconsistencies were glossed over by Reagan’s personal narrative of where the country was going and what he was doing for it. He preached budgetary restraint while greatly expanding government expenses. He preached a virulent anti-Communism but insisted on a personal relationship with Communist heads of state, especially Gorbachev. He argued for the oneness of all Americans in the “city on a hill” but had some clear ethnic priorities. But, as Weisberg notes, Reagan had a couple extraordinary characteristics. Unlike almost everyone else around him, Reagan refused to accept the status quo in American-Soviet relations – mutually assured destruction. In a strange twist, his absolute fidelity to the fantasized “Star Wars” umbrella of safety for this country (rather than mutual destruction) turned into an idea that terrified the Soviets and played an important role in the Reagan-Gorbachev talks. And, what was his greatest asset, Reagan spoke from the heart, meant what he said, and could communicate beautifully with the majority of the American people. Weisberg several times points out that Reagan turned bureaucratic drafts given him for speeches into effective prose. Regardless of whether one agrees (or agreed) with Reagan, it has to be admitted that he was one of the most effective communicators in presidential history. Evidence clearly shows that Reagan was losing his mental grasp as his presidency went on but his communication skills were never narcissistic or loaded with ulterior motives. For what it is worth (and it may be worth quite a bit these days), Reagan meant what he said about the greatness and future of America even if his facts or assumptions were frequently wrong.

Ronald Reagan was something of an enigma. People close to him admitted they never really knew him, including his four children to whom he was emotionally distant. He was a conservative who as governor of California and as president of the United States proved to be more moderate than conservative. A fierce anti-communist, he was nearly alone in believing the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. Such thinking led him to an improbable alliance with Mikhail Gorbachev that ended the cold war. A fiscal conservative, the national debt tripled under his administration. This is the Ronald Reagan who emerges in the pages of Jacob Weisberg’s marvelous (and relatively short) book, a B-actor and decided optimist who was more pragmatist than conservative, whose uncanny insight into human nature changed the course of world history.Entering office in 1981, Reagan’s view of the Soviet Union was that the Soviet system was vulnerable not in some vague, long-range historical sense, but right then. It was a gut feeling he had that no one else shared at the time. Indeed, the Republican hardliners—Al Haig, Richard Pipes, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Dick Cheney—thought him naive. “Communism is neither an economic or political system—it is a form of insanity—a temporary aberration which will one day disappear from the earth because it is contrary to human nature,” Reagan wrote in 1962. Now, as president, he believed the time had come. What he needed was someone in the Kremlin and someone in the White House to share his view. The someone in the Kremlin turned out to be Mikhail Gorbachev, and the someone on his staff was the secretary of state, George Shultz.There to encourage him was a writer familiar with the Soviet Union, Suzanne Massie, whom he invited to the White House 17 times after their initial meeting. Says Weisberg: “Massie humanized the enemy for him, teaching him always to distinguish between the great-souled Russians and the dingy Soviets.” The rest, as they say, is history. Reagan met with Gorbachev several times developing a bond of trust and friendship between them that resulted in a number of break-though agreements. “Thus did the Cold War pivot from mutually assured self destruction to mutually supported magical thinking,” writes the author. At the same time, the Soviet Union began to unravel. The tipping point came in 1987, when Reagan spoke at the Berlin Wall, where the Soviets had divided the East from the West. In words Reagan himself had written—words he had resisted pressure to remove from his speech—he said: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” By the end of his presidency Reagan was able to announce that the Cold War was over. The Berlin Wall came down after he left office, in late1989.The recession Reagan inherited upon entering office yielded to a number of economic stimuluses, including tax cuts and funding the revitalization of the military. Years of economic growth and prosperity followed as the economy grew by one third—but at a cost. Running for president, Reagan had accused the Democrats of a seemingly mindless policy of “tax and spend.” Reagan’s answer, termed supply-side economics, was to “borrow and spend” which by the time he left office had tripled the national debt. During his tenure, he raised taxes four times.Reagan entered office with the expressed purpose of shrinking government. In fact, he didn’t succeed in eliminating a single major program. Americans may have wanted less government as Reagan had insisted, but they also wanted national security to protect against terrorism, generous social security benefits at an early retirement age, medicare, federal highways, a vast system of national parks, subsidized mortgages, and college student loans. The time for turning back the clock to the simpler time Reagan envisioned, had long since passed by the time he entered the White House. While a conservative, Reagan was not above reaching compromise agreements with liberal Democrats in Congress to achieve his legislative agenda. Two of his three Supreme Court appointments were moderates.The blot on the Reagan presidency was the Iran-contra affair, in which Reagan’s lieutenants sought to evade a law forbidding U.S. aid to contras, the anti-communist fighters in Nicaragua. The result hoped for was the release of hostages being held by Iran. The affair went public, with Reagan having to go on TV to deny he had any prior knowledge of an arms-for-hostages deal being negotiated by members of his administrations. A congressional investigation concluded that Oliver North and others had acted as a secret cabal following what they believed to be Reagan’s wishes. “When exposure was threatened, they destroyed official documents, lied to Cabinet officials, to the public, and to elected representatives in Congress,” the report said. Left unanswered was the question of Reagan’s culpability.Weisberg places Reagan second only to Franklin Roosevelt as the 20th century’s greatest president. Historian’s differ. Currently, they place our 40th president 13th on the list of presidential greatest, directly behind James Monroe and just ahead of Lyndon Johnson. If you’re looking for short (154 page) well-written and well-documented account of the Reagan presidency, look no farther.