#472： Reagan, the Man
Episode Stats
Summary
Like FDR or JFK, Ronald Reagan has become more of a symbol for many Americans than a flesh and blood person. For some, he s the embodiment of all that s good in America, while for others he's the very opposite. But beyond the political divides, who was Reagan the man? My guest, Bob Spitz, spent five years researching and writing an epic non-partisan biography that seeks to bring the abstraction of Reagan back down to earth.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast like FDR or JFK
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Ronald Reagan has become more of a symbol for many Americans than a flesh and blood person
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for some he's the embodiment of all that's good in America while for others he's the very opposite
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but beyond the political divides who was Reagan the man my guest today spent five years researching
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and writing an epic non-partisan biography that seeks to bring the abstraction of Reagan back down
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to earth his name is Bob Spitz and his biography is Reagan an American Journey we begin our conversation
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discussing how Reagan's hardscrabble childhood in the Midwest and his family's staunch progressive
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politics influenced his early political outlook Bob then shares how a young Ronald Reagan showed
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signs of becoming the great communicator as a young man how his charm and innate talent for speaking
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led to a successful career in radio and the movies we then discussed why Reagan went from being a
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true believing democratic new dealer to being a leader in the burgeoning conservative movement in
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the 1960s Bob then delves into Reagan's leadership style as governor of California and president of
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the United States and the important role Nancy Reagan played throughout his political career
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in our conversation discussing Reagan's ultimate legacy after the show's over check out the show notes
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bob spitz welcome to the show my pleasure great to be here so you've got an interesting career you
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you've been in the music industry you've represented the partridge family Bruce Springsteen Elton John then
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you parlayed that to a writing career where you've written biographies about the Beatles history of
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Woodstock but now you've got this tome of a biography about President Ronald Reagan so how did you go from
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writing about I don't know pop culture music to President Reagan well it wasn't just music in between the
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Beatles and Reagan I was Julia Child's biographer and and so when it came time to look for a new subject
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after I was Julia's biographer I thought that you could draw a straight line through the Beatles and
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Julia through two elements that each of them had and that was number one they were beloved and number
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two they had changed the culture so I was looking to uh to to find a subject who who embraced both of
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those qualities and the list was incredibly small I mean I had thought for six months and gone through
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uh all the Kennedy Center nominees the Medal of Honor winners and people who embraced both qualities
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both elements were far and few and my wife said to me what about Ronald Reagan and I uh I took a big
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swallow and thought I can't do this I'm a lifelong Democrat I never voted for a Republican in my life
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how was I I didn't vote for Reagan twice how was I going to write a biography of Ronald Reagan but he
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he embodied both of those qualities I mean I was so intrigued by the fact that so many people in this
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country considered him a beloved individual whether or not they agreed with his policies I mean he's
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cited by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as as a beacon almost all the time and he he certainly changed the
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culture and and so I thought I'm going to look into this a little more and what I did I found a
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subject who led one of the most remarkable lives that I had ever encountered and was so rich for a
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biography and I couldn't resist okay so you know besides you know you you said you're a lifelong
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Democrat like you never thought you'd write about Ronald Reagan who'd be someone this icon of uh the
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Republican Party but besides that I mean Ronald Reagan I mean he's more symbol than man almost
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right I mean was that was that part sort of trepidation for you about this project like how do
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you you get to the like to the actual person Ronald Reagan yeah well he had you know he had grown into
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myth and uh that's always difficult for a biographer to penetrate I have the same thing with with the
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Beatles when I uh became their biographer you just have to do the the legwork I mean it's it's it took
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me two and a half years of talking to 350 people and and visiting all the places where Reagan grew up and
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going through all of his personal files until a picture of a personality emerges that you know to be
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true and that happens with almost any biography that that anyone encounters if you do the legwork
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soon enough you can peel off the uh the armor and get to the inner core of the person and that's what
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I was striving to do through all my work so let's talk about Reagan's childhood and youth how did his
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upbringing late you know influence his later political career yeah well that's it's a good
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question he Ronald Reagan had one of the most humble backgrounds I'd ever encountered his father was
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a reckless alcoholic his mom was a pious religious person they always they they often had to move under
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the cover of night when the rent came due Reagan and his brother often had to share just a single bed
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so you know he what he did was he he he kind of receded into his own little life world and blocked out
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everybody else around him this allowed him to to really you know help a fantasy life he read a lot
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he always reached for the stars and and this is a man again who came from a humble background but wound up
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being not just the voice of the Midwest on the radio but a Hollywood movie star the governor of California
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and the president of the United States and I think a lot of it had to do with him protecting himself from
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from his surroundings as a young kid he also went to a college that was well beyond his means he was
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basically a C and a D student and relied on his charm and his personality and developed that and I think you
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know he had he had a strong religious background from his mom he had a core set of principles that he
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always held dear to himself and and he traded on all of that to uh to become the man he did
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and what's interesting too about his childhood you talk a lot about too you know his dad was a diehard
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democrat and his mom you know he said he was pious but she was a part of a church that was a part of the
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social gospel movement where they kind of became the progressive movement exactly right and Reagan grew
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up as as a democrat as a progressive liberal who idolized Franklin D Roosevelt and what he idolized most of
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all was Roosevelt's social embodiments he he loved the fact that uh Roosevelt uh honored the working man
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loved unions he he hated the oil barons and and and the bankers and and that he uh gave money for
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to welfare for people and so Reagan you know had had a lot of that background in him that he did get from
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his parents and it was all kind of a liberal a liberal uh ethic well I mean so Reagan became known
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as the great communicator that's his nickname I mean were there signs of that as a child or a young
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man that he had this ability to connect with an audience and and just really say the right thing at
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the right time yeah he really learned that in college you know he got called on as a freshman to
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lead a student protest that basically shut down the university and it was right at that moment that he
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developed his voice I mean he really felt that he could stand up in front of a crowd and sway them
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with his with his rhetoric and that was something he traded on again and again you know he did the
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same thing after college as a as a radio personality he really learned how to use that voice and to
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communicate and how did so yeah so you did he graduate college did he finish he did finish college yeah he did
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four years of college uh eat through just barely eat through and and decided that he he wanted something
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greater in life and he had to leave the small town that he was brought up in Dixon Illinois and and move
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further west and so he wound up in in Iowa in Davenport behind a radio microphone and how did that happen
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did it was that sort of accident or was he very persistent like he knew that's what he wanted to do and
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he just put it he hit the pavement with resumes and just like can I get a job yeah no it was it was
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sheer fortitude and sheer dreaming he decided he wanted to be a radio broadcaster a sports broadcaster
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so he got in the car with his resume and you know he he went straight to Chicago you know right to the
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top and and basically the woman who was at the reception desk at uh and at the NBC affiliate there
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said look you know you're going about this all the wrong way it's like baseball you start in the
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minor leagues so find a small country station get a job get your foot in the door there and and see if
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you can uh you know begin your career that way and so he did he found a small station in Davenport he
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wedged himself in the door and before he knew it he had wedged the rest of himself in his well and
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and he was off and running uh to a great career that if it had only stopped in radio he would have
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had a a very very successful career right and I imagine calling sports games that's what he became
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known for that he learned how to communicate and improvise on the fly right he did he actually
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broadcast the games the Cubs and the White Sox games every night to as wide an audience as eight
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different states without ever having seen one of those games he got all the information on what
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was going on on the field through teletype dispatches that he would then have to translate
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and then broadcast as if he were you were listening to it as a live game and so he had to be incredibly
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creative absolutely dramatic and and really know how to put something like that across and I think you
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mentioned one moment like the tell one game like the teletype machine stopped working so he had to
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just pretty much make something up for like half an hour he had the guy fouling off ball after ball
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he kept watching the teletype machine to see if it would come back on he'd have the manager go out to
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the pitching mound to talk to the pitcher then there were more foul balls and finally when it came back
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one Reagan found out that the guy had fouled out on the first pitch so he and at this time I think
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another important thing this he wasn't Ronald Reagan he was known as Dutch Reagan that's how he
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introduced himself and he was known professionally on radio for a while correct yeah absolutely he had
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only ever been called Dutch as a kid in high school and college and that's what his listening audience
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knew him as to never ever called him himself Ronald nor did his parents call himself Ronald
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let's talk about when he became Ronald Reagan so we all know Ronald Reagan's like the one president
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that was a movie star before he became president how did that happen because he's this guy he's in
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radio how did he get in front of the silver screen you know he he accompanied the cubs out to a spring
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training they were training on Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles and he knew a young woman
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from Iowa named Joy Hodges who was singing with big bands in LA and had dinner with her and she said
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you know you ought to uh you ought to try out at Warner Brothers you ought to try out for a screen test in
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the movies you have what it takes except for those glasses you're wearing and she took the glasses off
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him and said don't ever put them on again and right there he at that dinner he said okay call your
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agent see if you can get me a screen test he had a screen test two days later and about four days
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later as he was heading back to uh Dick to Davenport with the the cubs he got a telegram that Warner
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Brothers wanted to sign him to a contract and and that was the beginning of the beginning so it was
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sort of like something kind of tumbled you know stumbled into accidentally was this like I mean did he
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have a goal like he thought maybe one day I could do movies because he acted as a child he did he acted
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as a child and he acted in college and in fact he was in a competition at Northwestern University
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and won and and one of the uh the drama coaches there said you know you'd have a really good future
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on the stage so Reagan was always thinking there might be something bigger than you know just being
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behind a microphone so you know he he was eager he had that at the back of his mind and I think when
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he had dinner with joy Hodges that night he had his eye on Hollywood so Reagan started in movies but
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he was never became like a leading man he was always in these b movies what kept him from you know
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becoming a star because it seems like the way you describe like that's what he wanted so bad and he
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was always like in his grasp but like just a little out of reach well what kept him from being a movie star
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was lack of talent you know he he was kind of wooden he was charming he had that you know that look that
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um best friends have um in in the movies but he he had no depth as an actor and that always kept him
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from getting the roles that he coveted I mean you know he he worked next to Errol Flynn and Olivia
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David Havilland and Betty Davis and some of the bigger Bill Holden who was his buddy some of the
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bigger stars but he he didn't have what they had and and I think Jack Warner knew that he had two
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opportunities in King's Row and in Newt Rockne All-American and you know he was serviceable but not star
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quality so uh but one thing that came out of the movie business is that he became president of the
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Screen Actors Guild what was his stint there like and how did that spark you know did it cause a spark
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for his political career later on well his stint there was brilliant I mean he didn't he wasn't just
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the president of the Screen Actors Guild for one term he won for six terms running and he did that
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because he had a real way of communicating with the actors who he represented and he had an incredible
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sense of politics he knew how to play them Ronald Reagan was a political animal not just around his
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dad when they talked politics but in college and especially in Hollywood on the set uh when when
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they broke between each scene Reagan was an incredible chatterbox I I have the distinct pleasure of
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going to Paris and doing a a huge interview with Olivia de Havilland who was just on the cusp of her
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100th birthday and and remembered so well how Reagan would talk politics between every scene he was
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obsessed with it in fact when they went to the commissary for lunch actors would wait to see where he sat
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before going into the commissary so they didn't wind up next to him and getting an earful of politics
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so politics was always on Reagan's mind and that worked in conjunction with his presidency of the
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Screen Actors Guild especially during one of the more uh violent times in Hollywood during the strikes
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in the blacklist and and he he knew how to wend his way through those those particular uh obstacles and
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that really uh helped him later on when it came time for politics right I mean I think in the book you
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talk about he stopped being it and then they asked him to come back because he was just everyone thought
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he did a good job at what he did yeah yeah actually he there was uh he was he was actually the president
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for five terms running then he took a hiatus thinking I'm never going back to that but they
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really needed him around the time of the blacklist and he agreed to come back and uh represent the
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guild again so as you mentioned we talked about earlier in the show he started off as a true
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believing democratic new dealer but now he became this he's this conservative icon when did his shift
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in politics start happening was it around this time in the movies yeah oh absolutely it happened during the
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um during the uh the the violent strikes olivia de Havilland actually set this out for me uh in in
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perfect terms the different committees in Hollywood at the time there were there were many
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activist activist committees were being infiltrated by people who believed in in the communist uh
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principles and Reagan Reagan saw how that really broke up meetings and and interfered with
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studio politics and felt that communists were were an evil group and so his politics started to skew from the left
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to the right also Reagan had made a serious mistake he uh when he went into the army he had heard uh during
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world war ii he had heard that the soldiers during world war one when they came out when the war had ended
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were forgiven their taxes so Reagan decided to take the chance and not pay his taxes thinking that
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of course it'll be the same during world war ii and it wasn't and he wound up with a 93 000 tax bill
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and never forgave uncle sam he always felt uncle sam was picking his pocket that big government was
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starting to interfere in his life even though it had been his mistake but that also helped skew his
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politics from the left to the right as well so by the time uh he was finished as a Hollywood star
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around the mid-1950s Ronald Reagan was seriously looking at the Republican Party and had left the
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Democratic Party behind well you mentioned that stood in the army i didn't know that about Reagan
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that he served in the army what what did he do during world war ii uh actually he uh he never left
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Hollywood he was stationed in Hollywood with something called the first motion picture unit
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and their job was to make uh training films for the gis uh and in fact it became more serious than that
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Reagan uh famously narrated a film that was made in a Hollywood studio during world war ii that had a
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simulation of Japan and as the camera flew over the simulation it guided the pilots later on that would drop
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the the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
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and now back to the show wow so he his career as a Hollywood star ended in the mid-1950s
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what did he do between that time that was he kind of did he have like a period sort of like out in the
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wilderness for a while um not so much the wilderness uh he had a few interesting things the first thing
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that befell him and when he didn't know what was going to happen in his life was that he took a
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a two-week job as the host of a corny vaudeville show in a las vegas casino and he was despondent
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doing something like that but he he got an offer during this time to do television and it was a place
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that he didn't want to go he felt that once an actor didn't move to television because it was such a
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fledgling new thing that it would it would be it would shape in his career he still had hopes that
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he could revive his career although he never did but but an offer came his way to be host of
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GE's General Electric's Sunday night anthology drama series called GE Theater in which he could act as
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well on several episodes but the most important thing about that offer was GE also asked him
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to be its ambassador and that would be to travel during the weeks to its big plants all over America
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and talk to the workers about what was going on at GE and find out what was going on in the workers
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lives Reagan absolutely loved this job he did it for several years and again if he had only done this
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for the rest of his life I think he would have been a happy buckaroo but this is where he became
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really involved with with the working class and what was going on with their lives and he found that
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they were very much like the people he grew up with in Dixon Illinois people who were struggling to make
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ends meet he listened to what they were doing he listened to what their dreams and their desires were
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and right there in that job at GE he really started to formulate his his foundation as as a
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politician later on yeah and besides that he would also do what you call it the mashed potato circuit he'd
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go and do these you know off-the-cuff speeches I think there also he sort of honed that that ability to
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communicate on the fly but also connect with an audience instantly yeah Reagan loves speaking I mean
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he spoke to the people with the GE plants he would also always gather a group around and talk to
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them but then as you said at night he would go out and speak to civic organizations you know the American
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Legion or the Elks or or whoever paid uh paid for his uh his services and he developed a real he was a
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raconteur he loved telling jokes he told some Hollywood stories but then he would gravitate to politics and
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what he what he he thought was going on in the world and what he felt needed to change and and audiences
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were kept in rapt attention so he uh was the spokesperson for GE during the 50s and how when how
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long did that stint last to go into the 60s that last you know that lasted five or six years yeah into
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the 60s exactly right so how did becoming governor of California end up on his radar
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well you know he he became such a good speaker that he had attracted a small group of businessmen
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in California where he lived who thought that you know he had some he had something to give in a
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larger way in a political way and these were wealthy businessmen who were either in they controlled all
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the car dealerships or the oil uh or or beer manufacturing and they later became of course
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his kitchen cabinet his famous kitchen cabinet but they asked him to give a speech in 1964
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for Barry Goldwater as Goldwater's candidacy was really tanking it was a half hour speech on tv which
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they paid for and it was all there in that speech the charisma the charm the wisdom the connection
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Reagan had it all and those businessmen looked at him and they thought we've got the wrong politician
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on the ticket and they decided then and there to run Ronald Reagan for governor of California
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well before we get to his thing as governor we got to talk about a person that played a huge role
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in Reagan's life and that was Nancy Reagan his wife his second wife was second wife right yeah we
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didn't talk about his first wife the actress Jane Wyman and was really crushed when that marriage
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fell apart but then he meets Nancy and you know one thing if you look at pictures of Ronald and Nancy
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you always see Nancy kind of looking up wistfully with doe eyes at Ronald Reagan but this picture you
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painted like she's she was also very assertive and very powerful so what how did what was Nancy's role
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in Reagan's political career well you know it's funny when I first when I wrote about the Beatles
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I knew that the boogeyman of the story was Yoko Ono right and boy was I wrong she was not
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in fact she was a strong assertive woman and when I when I began working on the Reagan biography
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I thought aha well I understand the boogeyman of this book is going to be Nancy Reagan and I was wrong
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again as you said she was strong she was assertive she had his back throughout his entire life when
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they got to the White House later on Nancy had one goal and one goal only in mind and that was to
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protect her husband's legacy she wanted him to be known after his presidency as a man of peace
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and from the very first day they set foot in the Oval Office she hounded him incessantly to make peace
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with the Soviet Union and to reduce the threat of nuclear war and I think after all my research I can
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safely say that we have Nancy Reagan to thank for Reagan meeting with Gorbachev and indeed reducing the
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threat of nuclear annihilation and and the dismantlement of the Soviet Empire so you know circling back to
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his career as governor what was his leadership style like as an executive well you know he didn't really
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know what he was doing as governor to begin with he he really was just winging it and so at the
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beginning the first two years were a little chaotic but then he he hit a stride and and here's what
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he discovered he had a mostly democratic assembly in in his legislature and of course he was a
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republican and he realized that the only way he could get anything done was through compromise and
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cooperation and so Reagan frequently reached across the aisle to work with the democrats and to get bills
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passed and this was something that occurred not only in his governorship but in his presidency as well
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because he wound up with the democratic legislature and tip o'neill as a very strong democratic speaker
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of the house they disagreed on everything but he Reagan would reach across the aisle work with o'neill and
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get things done and he really learned this as the governor of california you know he he decided that
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he he had to represent everybody in his state that is unheard of today well so let's talk about his
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political career as president because i thought this was one of the most fascinating sections you know
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leading up to his nomination as president in 1980 because there's this huge amount of fierce politicking
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going on in the republican party the republican party was sort of undergoing a identity crisis we can call
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it that and Reagan steps in and he was kind of a long shot at first wasn't he yeah he was a long shot i mean
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you know everybody thought of him as just an actor who wanted was trying to become president and they
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were also worried about his his kind of conservative politics which were were new that that was a new
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a new strain of of republicanism that hadn't been uh in the white house before and and so yeah he was
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a long shot i mean the person who wasn't the long shot was george bush george bush had won the um the
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um the iowa primary the iowa caucuses and was just about to sweep the uh the new hampshire primaries
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as well until a famous debate with reagan in which bush fell apart and reagan's candidacy took off
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so he he was a dark horse but but once he won the nomination actually he was still a dark horse
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people expected jimmy carter to uh to win a second term but the uh iranian hostage crisis had really
00:28:31.020
torpedoed carter's presidency well another thing we didn't mention this he he challenged gerald ford
00:28:36.840
right when gerald ford ran yeah that was in 76 he ran against gerald ford absolutely unheard of to
00:28:44.000
challenge an incumbent in your own party reagan almost won the nomination it was only uh at the last
00:28:52.360
minute that that he didn't and ford really never forgave him for that and so when ford when ford
00:28:59.800
heard that he was running again he tried to offer him a an ambassadorship somewhere to get reagan out
00:29:05.700
of the way or a cabinet post that would have you know put him in a corner somewhere but reagan was
00:29:11.560
too savvy to to fall for that and you mentioned that okay going back to that debate i know we're
00:29:15.480
kind of jumping around with george bush that was that famous debate where like reagan's campaign
00:29:20.540
paid for it and that's where he said that famous line like i paid for this mic microphone and for
00:29:25.140
some reason it brought down the house yeah it was it was a very famous debate it occurred toward the
00:29:30.480
end of the new hampshire primary when he and george bush were running neck and neck it was a tumultuous
00:29:37.380
night and in the book i really dramatize it because it was full of drama bush tried to keep the other
00:29:44.840
candidates who were running bob dole howard baker phil crane and john anderson off the debate stage
00:29:51.940
and reagan wanted them on the debate stage and in the band room at the school where they were holding
00:29:57.820
the debate i mean they were all screaming at each other it was incredible bush was on the stage waiting
00:30:04.800
for reagan and and reagan brought up the other people the other candidates on stage and bush's people
00:30:13.340
would not let them speak bush wouldn't even look at ronald reagan he wouldn't look at him in the eye
00:30:19.260
and so once the other candidates left and it was just bush and reagan on this dais bush fell apart
00:30:27.380
and and reagan kind of never forgave him for that when it came time to choose a vice president later on
00:30:34.780
and george bush was the obvious choice reagan's mind flashed back to that night in new hampshire and
00:30:41.260
thought i don't want a guy who falls apart as my vice president but they they struck a deal after
00:30:47.740
that and of course you know how that turned out we know how it turns out so he becomes president what
00:30:52.920
was his leadership style like as president was it similar to what he did as governor of california
00:30:57.140
sort of delegate uh very hands-off yeah absolutely you know reagan reagan was not the smartest man in
00:31:04.240
the room and he knew it you know he his ego wasn't so big that he he couldn't hire experts and rely on
00:31:13.240
their advice which is what he did he had a fantastic chief of staff in jim baker he had ed meese advising
00:31:21.140
him on his politics mike deaver in the oval office who handed up handled all of his personal things and he
00:31:28.580
he deferred to these people especially to his national security people he listened to them he
00:31:34.680
sifted through information he chose the best people and often he changed his mind on based on what they
00:31:42.020
had told him and and reagan again and i can't emphasize this too strongly was willing to reach across
00:31:50.380
the aisle to make compromises to bring the democrats into his fold and to get things accomplished and
00:31:58.460
he did there was no infighting you know they disagreed on policy uh reagan and the democrats but there was
00:32:06.680
no fighting or hurling insults or disparaging someone's character or i mean there was just none of
00:32:14.640
that they they worked arm in arm yeah i mean it seems like one of reagan's things you talk about
00:32:19.000
throughout the book was this idea he's dedicated to decency just american values and like he wanted
00:32:24.900
americans to feel that right and inspire americans to to reach for that yeah i think if you know you
00:32:32.140
could point to one thing that reagan accomplished more than anything else he restored the morale of
00:32:38.520
americans for their government and and their leaders and that in itself is is a remarkable accomplishment
00:32:46.160
and another interesting fact about presidents uh reagan's presidency is just a few months he had
00:32:51.620
an assassination attempt and i didn't i didn't know how close this guy was to dying i mean it was pretty
00:32:56.540
bad right yeah again in the book i was lucky enough to be able to speak to all the doctors and the nurses
00:33:03.240
who had uh attended him while uh he uh was in the hospital and they told me uh the specific instances
00:33:12.080
of how close that bullet was to his heart and and how difficult it was to remove it there was a chance
00:33:19.960
he was not going to make it and this was only you know this was a month after he had taken office that's
00:33:26.640
how quickly that this had happened so um i i think that assassination attempt changed his entire
00:33:34.080
perspective it really put him in touch with his own mortality and he realized that he had some some quick
00:33:41.820
work to do and and he had to again reach out to the soviets and try to find a way to make peace
00:33:47.900
and again exercising that great communicator improvisation ability and his wife comes in
00:33:53.280
sees him on the the bed and he he says famously honey i forgot to duck yeah that was actually a joe lewis
00:33:59.460
line uh joe lewis used that when he was knocked out in his famous championship fight and reagan you know
00:34:07.260
reagan the sportscaster knew that line and knew knew when to use it so reagan's presidency there
00:34:13.360
were some controversies there's the iran contra affair the the economy started slowing down a bit
00:34:18.720
there was the strike with the air traffic controllers that he had to shut down but despite all these
00:34:24.280
controversies reagan remained a pretty popular president throughout his entire career i mean what
00:34:29.500
do you think the appeal was it was just his ability to connect and communicate with people
00:34:32.980
yeah you know he was an actor who would become president and so he knew how to use the camera he
00:34:39.900
knew how to talk to people and and he also strove for a middle ground you know he was a pragmatist he was
00:34:46.760
conservative but he was not a what you would call a right winger he was a man who kind of hewed to the
00:34:53.600
middle and i think you know if he looked at bill clinton's uh candidacy years later clinton as a democrat
00:35:00.720
also hewed to the middle i mean that was his secret and that's why his presidency was so successful
00:35:07.560
yeah reagan reagan knew that he was the president of all americans not just a few americans and and so
00:35:17.740
i think he tried to do things that were not too radical or too unexpected or too self-serving
00:35:24.960
and that's why when an ardent democrat like myself who never voted him looks back on his career
00:35:32.640
i have a little fondness for it would i vote for him today absolutely not because those aren't my
00:35:39.780
politics i don't follow those policies but do i respect him as a man and a leader absolutely 100
00:35:47.080
yeah i mean during those times as president he gave some really famous speeches we've done some
00:35:52.340
articles like the most famous speeches in american history and reagan's challenger speech always comes
00:35:57.840
up his speech about tearing down the wall always comes up i mean were those i mean did he write those
00:36:03.520
himself or were those sort of off the cuff or he just he i'm gonna go they weren't they were written
00:36:08.860
for him but the secret was knowing how to deliver them you know you could write something for anybody if
00:36:16.880
they don't know how to deliver it and put it across and really sell their audience then no matter what's
00:36:22.200
on the printed page you know doesn't doesn't mean that much yeah he had a way of communicating with
00:36:28.780
his populace and and people loved him for it and and um and i i would say safely miss him for it as well
00:36:38.360
what was what were his last years like well you know his last years were were haphazard he um
00:36:45.260
famously uh came down with with alzheimer's disease um i i was actually very fortunate to be able to
00:36:54.460
talk to the people who were in the room with him when they told him that he had it i think it was
00:37:01.080
always on the horizon for him his mother had died of it his father had it his brother neil had it
00:37:06.900
i think reagan always felt it was coming down the pike it was no surprise and and for for several
00:37:14.240
years after his presidency he managed to go into the office every day and and see people bill clinton
00:37:21.840
famously came to see him george bush came to see him often and he had his finger on the pulse of
00:37:28.880
washington but as the alzheimer's took over his mind started to slip away and things got tough for him
00:37:36.100
and in the end the last two years of his life nancy made sure that he was not seen publicly
00:37:42.220
and she really gave up her own life to sit and take care of him until he died you know it's been 30
00:37:48.980
years since his presidency is there sort of a consensus developing amongst historians and political
00:37:53.740
scientists about his administration or his legacy i think more about his legacy than his administration
00:37:59.680
he's been cited in all kinds of polls as being one of the 10 great presidencies
00:38:04.820
i i don't think it was really for what he did although there was the dissolution of the you know
00:38:12.280
the soviet union and really his peaceful negotiations with mikhail gorbachev but you know his his second
00:38:19.540
administration was mired in iran contra controversy rightfully so and he had really missed the boat on the
00:38:29.020
aids crisis he completely avoided it which he even admitted was a huge mistake in his career
00:38:36.460
so i think his legacy when you look at it is more about reagan the man than reagan the president but
00:38:43.560
yeah he's ranked he's always ranked very high what do you what do you hope people walk away with about
00:38:49.260
reagan after finishing your book oh i you know look i mean i this is a man whose life framed the entire
00:38:56.720
20th century so really um you it's as you mentioned at the outset it's a great history lesson you know
00:39:05.160
um it's a great history lesson there's a lot about hollywood there's a lot about growing up in the midwest
00:39:12.600
and of course a shift to the right and the rise of conservatism so i i think you know what i'd like
00:39:21.720
people to walk away with more than anything is the fact that ronald reagan changed our lives and
00:39:27.600
changed the culture and this is how it happened it's a real behind the scenes look at it i was
00:39:33.900
afforded the right to see his private papers which nobody had ever seen before these weren't the papers
00:39:42.420
in the reagan library these were the ones that were in his office desk that he referred to
00:39:47.800
often as he was governor and president and so i hope that uh you really get a sense of the man and
00:39:54.160
what he accomplished in his life well bob is there some place people can go to learn more about your
00:39:58.120
work absolutely head to my website bobspitz.com you can find about out about all my books and if you
00:40:06.420
want an autographed copy you can even get one through the website so uh it's a good place to start to
00:40:11.440
look well bob spitz thanks for your time it's been an absolute pleasure mine too thanks for uh for
00:40:16.700
having me here my guest today was bob spitz he's the author of the biography reagan an american journey
00:40:21.900
it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information
00:40:25.380
about his work at bobspitz.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash ronald reagan
00:40:30.720
where you can find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic
00:40:33.680
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com
00:40:50.480
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