Ep 12 ｜ Bob Spitz ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 14 minutes
Words per Minute
151.22722
Summary
Ronald Reagan was a man of many talents. He was a brilliant politician, a loving husband, a father, a husband, and a husband. And yet, he was also a man with a deep, dark secret: He didn t vote for Ronald Reagan.
Transcript
00:00:21.700
So, with all the people you've talked to over the years, and that is, you know, the who's who.
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When I had finished The Beatles and finished Julia Child, I was looking, of course, for another biography to write.
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And my wife said, you know, there are two characteristics to all your books.
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You write about people who are beloved and people who have changed the culture.
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And so we sat down to make a list of people who could fill that.
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We looked at all the Kennedy-centered nominees and the presidential medals.
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And there was nobody who really encompassed both things.
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In fact, I don't think I've ever voted for a Republican.
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And my Democratic friends thought, you know, I'd abandon the cause.
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And my Republican friends, and I have more Republican friends than you might imagine.
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Both of my Republican friends thought that I lost my objectivity.
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I learned, when I was at CNN, I assigned a monologue about Reagan to the best writer on
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And I read it, and it was good, but it was completely hollow.
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And I called him up, and I said, Hal, what is this?
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He didn't like Reagan, and so he couldn't connect with him.
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You have to find something to admire in the person that you're writing about.
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This was a man who was beloved to so many people in America.
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And he was, you know, he's often referred to by people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
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And so I thought, I need to learn why this man has these qualities that I never embraced
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I will tell you, I was really shocked when I read the book, because it is written as if
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it, I don't want to say this wrong, as if it was written by somebody who liked him.
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It doesn't mean that it's a revisionist history or anything like that.
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So what did you, where did you start with, I got to like him?
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You know, I always believe that you don't know a person until you know where they come
00:03:15.220
I located the soul of Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois.
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I, and, and I went to his college where he found his voice and decided that this was
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a man who had a lot of substance that had eluded me all these years.
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But that doesn't mean that I can't really like, like the men and respect them.
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I think we have a problem in society where we, um, everybody's a cartoon and they're not,
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you know, the one thing about Reagan was he, there was a lot of depth to him.
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You know, if you really read his writings, not stuff that's just been pumped out for him,
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But I'm, I'm, uh, I'm interested in how, when you got to Dixon, because a lot of people,
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even if you find Reagan, Reagan is this guy who's a real throwback, uh, a very Frank Capra.
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How did you find the genuine person and not the cartoon?
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I saw a lot of his early writings as a student in high school, as a college student, and as
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And these were speeches he wrote longhand on his yellow tablets that are not in the library.
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Uh, that, no, they're, they're his private papers.
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And I was, I think one of two people ever to have access to Ronald Reagan's private papers.
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And the first person, Ed Morris, never unwrapped them.
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They were still bound with, uh, with the tape and everything that came out of the Oval Office.
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And these were the papers that were by his desk that he went back to time and again to
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And so the speeches that he wrote as a kid, the stuff that he wrote as president of the
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Screen Actors Guild, page after page of, of yellow line paper in his handwriting were
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truly amazing and showed me the whole character of the man right there.
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So did you find, because he is, I mean, he's an actor, he's a showbiz guy.
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He said, he understood that politics is showbiz, right?
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So in your book, you talk about the, the moment, and I want to come back to this, but you talk
00:06:03.920
about the moment where he is, um, about to, um, go in with George Bush for the debate.
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And he says, excuse me, I paid for this microphone.
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So how can you tell the difference of where the Ronald Reagan actor and the learned, um,
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You really have to, to look deep to find where that cleft is.
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Um, he, I think most of the time that Reagan was really sincere in his life.
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And yet when he needed a crutch, when he needed something, he drew on movie lines.
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One thing that people don't really understand is that this, the, uh, strategic defense initiative,
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the star Wars came out of a movie when, when he was a, when he was a young actor at Warner
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Brothers, he played secret agent, Buzz Bancroft, and they built a bubble over the United States
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And yet Reagan, he, he really believed that that would work.
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And, and he, you know, so there was a lot of childness, you know, childness, whoops,
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I'll say that again, a lot of childish, childishness, got it in him that he, um, that he used to
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Um, the star Wars, cause I've only made it to the election.
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I mean, this is a, you know, I think the presidency.
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Uh, so, um, uh, star Wars, how much of that was bogus?
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I mean, how much you say he believed in this, but it's my understanding that he was a very
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shrewd negotiator that, yeah, this, this, we're, we're working on this, but we're really
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Bud McFarlane, his, uh, national security advisor told me that they always had a feeling
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that star Wars wouldn't work, but they needed to convince the Soviet union that it would
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and that it was really in development and they were heading towards implementation.
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I mean, it was, it was, they called it the sting because in a way it was a little like
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the sting and, and whether it worked or not didn't matter at all.
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And he did, he sold it to Gorbachev all the way.
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Just give me the high points of the things that you found.
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There was just the Reagan book had been released in the last couple of years.
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Uh, so tell me what's, what I find in here through your eyes.
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Well, I'll, I'll tell you a part of it is my Democrat eyes.
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So I rely on the biographer's craft talking to new people.
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I found schoolmates of him, his, who were still alive, 104 year old woman who not only worked
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with Reagan, but worked with his father, Jack and his brother, Neil, who could really tell
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Uh, and she sent me to other people who knew the family well.
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Um, so tell me about his, tell me about his family.
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There were times that Reagan didn't know if they were going to have enough food on the
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And so, uh, you know, his dad was, um, a gregarious guy, but an alcoholic who couldn't hold a job.
00:10:05.020
And often they had to move under the cover of night, uh, when the rent came due tough on a
00:10:16.460
It taught him to depend on himself, but he never lost sight of how much he loved his parents.
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Even when they might not have been giving him the best, uh, the best advice.
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I think when things are falling around you and they're not working well, you turn inward.
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He had a, he had a different, um, he was an optimist.
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He was an optimist and he, and what made him so contagious was he believed it.
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And when somebody actually believes it, you know, and they can sell it to you.
00:11:10.120
He believed that tomorrow is going to be better, but he didn't have a childhood that said tomorrow's
00:11:31.780
His mother was a very pious religious woman who often was more involved in the church than
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And these were two parents who were so wrapped up in their own lives, his mother with her
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religion, his father with his job and his alcoholism, that young Dutch couldn't even
00:11:53.060
He accidentally picked up a pair of his mother's glasses one day when he thought he, he, he couldn't
00:12:03.480
Um, he couldn't play sports because he couldn't catch a ball.
00:12:06.720
He accidentally picks up his mother's glasses one day.
00:12:14.520
So all these developmental years, he can't see where he's going.
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He can't see the school, the blackboard in school.
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He picks up his mother's glasses and puts them on and the world opens up to him.
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So Reagan always had to get by on his own, on his own wits.
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When he goes to college, he, he, he wasn't going to college.
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His father told him he couldn't pay the money to send him to school.
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So Reagan takes his girlfriend to a college that's way above his station just to help her
00:12:51.800
And when he gets there, he realizes I am not going back.
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And so he goes to see the Dean and on the spot, they create a scholarship for him.
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And, and to supplement it, he takes four different jobs.
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And when he has enough money just to get by for himself with a little leftover, he brings
00:13:20.840
his brother to school and pays for some of his way as well.
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And it is interesting that he never wound up at MGM, which was the white picket fence
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He winds up at the dark studio, Warner Brothers.
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So let's, so let's kind of stay in, in his teen years and his, in his college years.
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Um, what was his view of who he could become or that he wanted to become 15, 16 years old?
00:14:05.160
Well, um, he, he read a book, um, and I'm having a senior moment because I'm, uh, that really
00:14:14.820
And it was somebody, it was a character who was not only idealistic, but worked through
00:14:21.220
his father's alcoholism and found religion and found faith and used faith to go forward.
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And Reagan started to put it all together through that book, uh, for himself.
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Um, when he goes to college, he goes to a school that is, um, underwritten by the disciples of
00:14:45.520
And there he, uh, he gets a taste of socialism.
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They had socialistic principles, this disciples of Christ.
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And he starts to think about politics all the time.
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They are shutting down the school to have a student protest.
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And the seniors don't want to speak to the rest of the school to, and to get them to,
00:15:17.260
So that, because the seniors would have, might've sacrificed their diplomas.
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They pick out a freshman, a freshman who they think, you know, he's just kind of a big mouth
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And Reagan makes the speech in front of the entire student body that gets applause, shuts
00:15:41.960
He's got that communication skills and he, he has charm that goes with it.
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And right there at Eureka college, we see the formation of Ronald Reagan that will take
00:15:58.400
But he is not the Ronald Reagan that, uh, becomes president.
00:16:08.500
He wasn't a, Ronald Reagan, uh, I love to say, wasn't a deep thinker, but his thinking
00:16:34.980
He believed in his ideals based on his faith, based on principles that came from his father's
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And he believed, he believed in advancing the working man, uh, people who were underprivileged.
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Um, he took that Rooseveltian, uh, ethic and he turned it to the right and into conservatism
00:17:11.920
So where did, because he goes out to Hollywood.
00:17:20.520
Well, actually he was in a few plays in college, loved it, got the acting bud.
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But what he wanted to be more than anything was a sportscaster.
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Uh, in college, he was, uh, on the football team, fifth man down on the bench, running back,
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Um, he couldn't see the ball since he, uh, until he was 12, I'm sure.
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So we had a lot of making up to do, but he gets a job as a sportscaster.
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In Davenport, Iowa, and then he moves to Des Moines and literally in three years becomes
00:18:03.920
I mean, really people in eight States listen to Ronald Reagan every night, whether he was
00:18:09.440
doing the Cubs or the White Sox games or interviewing Amy Semple McPherson or Gene Autry or whoever
00:18:16.560
was coming through town, he became a star, uh, Hollywood.
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He could have forgone Hollywood and just had a great life as a broadcaster in the Midwest.
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Uh, he loved doing it, but he still had that acting bug.
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And so one day when he's gone out to the Cubs, uh, spring training in, uh, in California,
00:18:46.900
Uh, and I mean that in there are many ways, but in the way that his radio was, um, him.
00:18:59.300
Where Wells was always creating, yes, playing a character.
00:19:04.500
So he, when he's doing radio, he's honing his interpersonal skills and who he is.
00:19:16.220
I, I think it does because when he got to Hollywood, Hollywood was looking for more nuanced stars.
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Reagan was himself on the air when he was an announcer.
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And when he gets to Hollywood, he's basically limited to roles where he was himself.
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Although I'll say the one character where he, you know, that the role that all that transformed
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He really goes off the reservation there and, um, and try something different.
00:20:03.800
He loved playing, um, guys who rode to the rescue.
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He, he didn't have many friends in high school either, uh, nor in college, although he lived
00:20:23.860
in a fraternity house, but he always kept to himself.
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Um, when he gets to Hollywood, it's odd because his friends are,
00:20:35.720
Dick Powell was his closest friend, an ardent Republican, and Robert Montgomery, also an
00:20:45.620
Those guys fought like cats and dogs, you know, they, but the thing was they really respected
00:20:52.980
Uh, and at night, you know, they'd fight like crazy and then they'd go to Chasen's and have
00:20:59.080
So, uh, but he is still, he's, when he goes to Hollywood, he still believes in...
00:21:18.680
In fact, he flirts with joining the communist party.
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An actor said, Ron, I don't think you really want to do this.
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And it was a democratic actor who said, those, those loonies are way too far to the left.
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He didn't attend a communist party meeting, but he went to many different meetings of
00:21:51.800
little organizations that were supposed at Hollywood, lefty organizations, um, that really
00:22:01.200
Reagan still didn't understand how, how far left that might've taken him off the deep end.
00:22:14.260
Um, because I want to stay here in the early years.
00:22:17.180
I know in the sixties, in the late fifties, things change for him, but where is the turning
00:22:26.940
It's actually a humorous, uh, a little anecdote.
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Uh, he worked for the first motion picture unit and he basically served in LA in Hollywood,
00:22:38.560
uh, making training films for, uh, servicemen and also for the Enola Gay plan that flew
00:22:49.620
While he was in the army, he read that soldiers during the first world war were forgiven their
00:22:58.560
So Reagan figures, you know, I'm not going to pay my taxes for a couple of years.
00:23:04.920
Uh, they'll probably forgive, do the same thing.
00:23:10.440
So he gets out of the army and he finds that he's $90,000 in debt to, to uncle Sam and starts
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feeling like big government has its hand in his pocket all the time.
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Um, and that's when Dick Powell and Robert Montgomery start to go to work on him.
00:23:27.820
And there was a very strong community of Republicans in Hollywood during that time.
00:23:34.700
Um, it wasn't a big number, but it was a lot of major people who, uh, John Wayne, uh, John
00:23:43.940
Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, another comedian, um, and, and a half dozen other artists.
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And they all knew each other and Reagan saw them socially and little by little started
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to really appreciate what they were saying to him about big governments, smaller taxes.
00:24:07.520
So he is, um, he kind of leaves, uh, acting and becomes the head of the screen actor guild,
00:24:16.460
Um, he was, he was still acting while he was head of the screen actors guild, but his career
00:24:22.320
When he comes out of the, out of the army, he's a little too, he's, he's getting a little
00:24:30.540
And there are other stars like Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and James Dean, who were nothing
00:24:36.860
like him who are starting to come up at this time.
00:24:39.360
What was the, for Ronald Reagan, what was the McCarthy era like?
00:24:44.680
Yeah, it was really, uh, it was really, uh, it was really cataclysmic, uh, in many ways.
00:24:50.500
Um, he, I, I had a really incredible experience and in understanding his, his involvement.
00:24:59.660
I had been communicating with somebody who was involved in this by email, um, who lived
00:25:05.800
in Paris and my wife and I were headed to Paris and I said, can I come over with you
00:25:11.820
Um, because you were involved with the formation of the screen actors guild.
00:25:15.420
And so I got to spend three hours with Olivia de Haffland.
00:25:20.380
Who was just about to be a hundred who said, who rarely sees anybody and who said, Ronald
00:25:28.480
I want to tell you all about the blacklist and the, uh, the screen actors guild and the
00:25:36.920
Um, I will say that we, we talked for about three and a half hours and she drank me under
00:25:46.060
I figured I could be a hundred by following her.
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Um, she told me that Reagan was a very strong leader and, um, and, and didn't know which
00:26:00.240
way to, but didn't know which way to turn politically at that point.
00:26:04.400
Um, he discovered that a lot of the people who were causing the union trouble in Hollywood
00:26:11.800
were his old lefty friends who were, um, flirting with communism, uh, or.
00:26:23.080
But of course there was violence involved in a lot of these union strikes too with, at
00:26:39.160
I, I think this is a, this must have been really hard living in that era because.
00:26:44.960
Communism, they were our allies during World War II.
00:26:48.840
And, you know, FDR, I've, I know a lot of communists who I like.
00:26:52.480
Um, so it does, it, it doesn't have the weight that it took almost immediately after World War II.
00:27:02.900
At one point, Reagan says, when they asked the Screen Actors Guild to, uh, to throw at
00:27:08.600
anybody who's communist, Reagan says, I don't throw anybody out who's, who has a different
00:27:24.080
Um, was he, I, I'm, if I could go back into American history and watch the time period,
00:27:36.320
I would, I would go back there because I think we're repeating some of those same things now.
00:27:44.900
Um, and, uh, and, and so I'm, I, I have a difficult time with anyone who tries to silence anyone.
00:27:53.500
You know, where in a constitution does it say I can't express your opinion, can't express
00:28:01.360
Um, it can't be a violent communist, but where does it say I can't believe on those things?
00:28:07.140
Um, how conflicted was he not on necessarily communism, good or bad, but the shutting down
00:28:15.940
of people, because he seems to be, uh, later in life, an icon for the bill of rights.
00:28:35.800
Oh, I think he was in personal chaos during this time.
00:28:38.620
Uh, these people who were communists had been his friends.
00:28:44.140
A lot of the screenwriters personally, he had worked with a lot of them.
00:28:52.400
And yet he realized that they were creating a havoc that was more insidious than he had
00:29:01.020
Uh, yet he spoke as the president of the union for all the, all the actors, all the people
00:29:07.940
So he was really conflicted all through this, um, during the blacklist, when he's asked to
00:29:14.980
go and name names, oh, he was, he was tormented by it.
00:29:20.380
He decided to name a few names that had already been named, but he, um, he was very careful
00:29:27.600
in his comments when I went back and read that, cause I recreate all the strike tension
00:29:33.040
and all of the violence, uh, in the list, uh, in the book.
00:29:37.620
Um, I, I got a sense that, that Reagan was a torn man, just tormented by the whole thing.
00:29:45.920
Um, um, had to steer through that very carefully.
00:29:52.060
We don't have to stop here, but if you want to stop for just a second, um, cause I am fascinated
00:29:57.700
by this time period and the things that we're repeating now, we have calls for violence.
00:30:07.560
We're not at the name names, but I could see us getting there.
00:30:11.100
Um, and, and on one hand, you want to be able to say, no, they have absolutely, everybody
00:30:21.500
has a right to speak their mind, but violence is starting to, to come into it now.
00:30:32.140
What are we missing from in this time period, if anything, that maybe they had in that time
00:30:39.740
Respect for the, for the knowledge that not everybody has to have your opinion.
00:30:47.440
That doesn't mean those people are out to get you.
00:30:50.100
It just means that they don't believe the same thing you believe.
00:30:59.520
And, you know, Reagan makes that incredible speech at the end of his presidency, the last
00:31:04.840
speech that he makes to the American people where he talks about, he talks about that shining
00:31:13.000
Where he says, and boy, does this have shockwaves today, where he says, if the cities have to
00:31:18.580
have walls, if the cities have to have walls, then the walls have doors and everyone who
00:31:26.960
wants to live in peace and harmony should be allowed to come through those doors.
00:31:33.420
It's chilling when you think of what we're going through today.
00:31:36.460
And he, he warns about how parents need to teach the things that were automatically taught
00:31:49.540
You began this discussion, Glenn, by asking me of what I latched on to, to really take myself
00:31:55.740
And it was really the, the realization very early on that Ronald Reagan always believed
00:32:08.220
And I found that so attractive so that when I, you know, reprobate liberal Democrat set
00:32:16.840
out to write a book about really the father of presidential conservatism, I had plenty
00:32:26.020
And that's, that's what really pulled me through it.
00:32:38.220
And that's really frightening because, wow, do we need somebody like that right now?
00:32:43.680
I'm hoping that someone comes out of the woodwork, someone we never expected.
00:32:49.760
I mean, I'm sure you won't like to hear this, but I was a great fan of Barack Obama's.
00:32:55.420
And I thought he, you know, there was never a scandal while he was in office.
00:32:59.520
And I think he really, he had dignity and he didn't disparage anybody.
00:33:05.900
I would like to see a Republican step out of the woodwork like that and emerge.
00:33:11.780
I would like to see two candidates, opposite parties.
00:33:15.740
When a conservative can look to the way things were, people were behaving during the Obama
00:33:26.320
administration and say, ah, remember the quaint old, good old days?
00:33:33.740
Because every side, every position, every institution has gone insane.
00:33:42.060
Boy, would I love to go back to the George W. Bush show.
00:33:46.960
Yeah, I need somebody that I can believe in as an American.
00:33:50.560
You know, I'm looking for somebody that I can look up to.
00:33:52.900
What was, I keep saying this, but then we will go back to the book.
00:34:22.900
And in looking at the country and trying to find what the heck do we do, I have found
00:34:38.920
We don't remember what we came here for in the first place.
00:34:42.760
What we have, and it's the idea in the Declaration of Independence, and it is the Bill of Rights
00:34:54.760
We've never been perfect, but we've always been striving for that.
00:35:04.280
We're not even talking about those things anymore.
00:35:14.100
Is, was that his message that we connected with?
00:35:20.180
I think Reagan knew the Constitution and the Bill of Rights backwards and forwards.
00:35:25.120
And he knew them not from when he was governor or president.
00:35:33.440
And, and I think he kept all of that close to his heart.
00:35:37.560
And when you keep that close to your heart, it translates into what kind of a leader you're
00:35:43.820
So, Bob, how do you, because you say he was a uniter.
00:35:50.760
He, he was a, I don't remember how you said it, a deep thinker.
00:35:55.840
Or, um, I said he wasn't a deep thinker, but his thinking was deeply felt.
00:36:06.280
So, um, he, he's, he's not sitting around and pondering deep thoughts, but he's, he's
00:36:15.620
That's the opposite of what half the country believed about Ronald Reagan.
00:36:23.020
So how do, how, how do we cut through and not make, you know, one president into, you
00:36:36.480
know, a monster and then the next time they make him into a monster.
00:36:40.360
How do we, how does somebody who is genuine survive?
00:36:48.500
Read biographies of great men, great historians, uh, great, uh, great figures in, in history
00:36:55.740
and, and learn about, learn that they're more than what you said at the beginning, a cartoon
00:37:01.980
John F. Kennedy had the same kind of spirit as Reagan.
00:37:07.560
Um, I don't know what party either of them would fit in at this point.
00:37:15.440
Um, but both of them with really almost the same message and the same packaging, they'd
00:37:29.520
People are waiting for that person to emerge out of the mist and put this country back together
00:37:36.020
You know, it's not about making this country great.
00:37:40.640
It's about making us realize what we have, all the, the great things that we have and
00:37:46.860
the ability to work together and to respect each other.
00:37:50.620
I have a very large collection of American history and, um, uh, because of a conversation
00:37:59.820
I had with my daughter, I have a very large collection of some of the worst things in American
00:38:08.860
So I, I, if we don't know both sides, we're fooling ourselves.
00:38:22.500
Um, uh, did Reagan, did Reagan connect and know the dark side of America?
00:38:33.720
What we could be and what we had been at periods of our life?
00:38:45.020
And so he would connect with things like our military industrial complexes falling apart
00:38:53.580
You know, Ronald Reagan thought in, in big ways.
00:38:57.800
And that's when I said, and stories, and that's when I said he, he wasn't a deep thinker,
00:39:04.340
That, that's one of the things that I hoped in the, in the book to convey to people that
00:39:10.140
while you might've thought he was Ronnie Reagan and the Hollywood bedtime for Bonzo, um, there
00:39:17.960
was a guy who might not have been the most complex thinker, but he was, he, he, he, he thought
00:39:42.420
I think he looked at things through rose colored glasses, hence the Star Wars, hence Mr. Gorbachev
00:39:52.440
So for instance, uh, somebody I would imagine he liked, um, Eisenhower.
00:40:01.360
The, the, I think one of the last really, truly honest, brave speeches anyone has given
00:40:12.640
If you read that entire speech of the industrial complex, did he, did he take that into consideration
00:40:25.100
He took, he read Eisenhower backwards and forwards and he wanted to speak to him quite a bit.
00:40:39.000
He, he learned, he learned how to be a little more political from Nixon.
00:40:43.840
He received an 11 page memo from Nixon, uh, right before he chose his cabinet in the
00:40:50.540
first term and Nixon laid out all the do's and don'ts for him.
00:40:58.340
But Reagan, Reagan really absorbed a lot of it.
00:41:06.940
I think he learned how to be a compassionate president from Eisenhower, how to, uh, this
00:41:13.280
is an interesting thing, how to be the president for all the people, which he felt that was
00:41:20.400
Here's a really interesting thing about Reagan that you might not know.
00:41:24.560
As governor of California, he signed one of the earliest therapeutic abortion bills in
00:41:41.360
So I called Tony Bielenson, who was now deceased, who was a democratic assemblyman from Hollywood,
00:41:48.440
who, who proposed that bill and saw it all the way through.
00:41:53.060
And he said, Reagan opposed it from the beginning, but I convinced him that 62% of the California
00:42:03.880
And Reagan said, I'm willing, if 62% are willing, I'm willing to look at a study that you find
00:42:13.940
And he saw us trust the people, trust the people.
00:42:17.460
And he saw that more than 62% were in favor and he opposed it, but he signed it because he
00:42:24.040
said, I'm the governor of all the people, not just some of the people.
00:42:29.240
Now, what a remarkable, this ties into a lot of things you were saying, the governor of all
00:42:35.460
the people, in every state, in every city, in every room, there are, there are people have
00:42:46.840
And, and Reagan decided if I'm going to be the leader of, if you've entrusted the leadership to
00:42:58.420
So it's strange because some would say, oh, well, that's just a governing by polls, which is not.
00:43:08.580
I think if you're governing by polls, then you don't bring anything of yourself to it.
00:43:14.820
And there were so many other bills where the polls were strong, but Reagan, Reagan wouldn't,
00:43:23.500
he wouldn't destroy the environment, the seashore in California, even though the polls told him
00:43:33.500
How did this guy get to be the evil Ronald Reagan?
00:43:39.280
Well, as you said, that was the cartoon character, Ronald Reagan, that, you know, the press and,
00:43:49.280
And, you know, he was a, an actor, so he was easy prey.
00:44:01.640
I want to, let's, let's skip ahead and go, and go into his presidency just a little bit.
00:44:07.820
Um, first tell me about, and I have not reached it yet.
00:44:12.300
Tell me about the Iranian when he lifts his hands.
00:44:16.200
I remember Reagan was the first president I voted for and I couldn't vote in 1980.
00:44:23.080
Um, but I remember him lifting his hand and then hearing that the hostages were being released
00:44:30.940
Well, they had, they had always sensed that the hostages were going to be released.
00:44:35.500
And people always said, well, they were worried about the October surprise and, um, not the
00:44:41.620
Was it Jimmy Carter that negotiated that or was it a combination or what?
00:44:46.200
It was Jimmy Carter and Reagan really acknowledged Jimmy Carter and all his efforts on their ride
00:44:52.520
to the inauguration, the presidential ride where the two, the outgoing president and the
00:45:02.740
I didn't, they didn't say anything because Reagan knew that Carter had been up for four
00:45:09.060
Um, Warren Christopher, his secretary of state briefed the Reagan cabinet all the time.
00:45:16.720
They kept each other in the loop and the Reagan people assured Carter that if Ray, if Carter
00:45:23.820
brought the hostages back, the Reagan people were going to make a very big deal of Carter's
00:45:30.720
Um, the Ayatollah on the other hand, uh, wasn't about to bring them back until Reagan was president
00:45:41.020
I mean, Reagan came with the reputation of being a saber rattler and had once said that,
00:45:47.340
you know, he could make turn Iran to run into a parking lot very quickly.
00:45:55.100
Uh, the, the wheels were up as Reagan was being sworn in.
00:46:01.440
In fact, Dick Allen, who was a national security advisor told me that he got wind of it as Ronald
00:46:09.100
Reagan was taking the oath and he duck walked down the aisle, tapped Reagan on his tuxedo
00:46:15.820
pants and handed up a piece of paper that just said wheels up in Tehran and Reagan turns
00:46:22.920
around classic Ronald Reagan and he winks at him and he puts the paper back in his pocket
00:46:28.860
cause he did not want to steal Jimmy Carter's thunder at the inauguration.
00:46:33.940
That tells you a lot about that kind of that guy.
00:46:42.860
I think that's one speech Reagan would like to take back.
00:46:45.360
He, um, he wanted to be, he wanted to underscore how strong he was.
00:46:54.180
And, you know, in his first term, he has three different Soviet premieres to deal with.
00:47:06.260
They made it very clear from the get go that they weren't going to negotiate with him.
00:47:10.080
And Reagan wanted to make it clear that he wasn't somebody to be, uh, to be taken lightly.
00:47:16.620
In fact, he tells, I believe it's, uh, Bud McFarlane at one point, you tell that Russian
00:47:23.820
negotiator you're talking to, you work for one tough son of a bitch.
00:47:28.020
Um, he wanted to make a point and, and, but I think he regretted calling it the evil empire
00:47:34.300
because it came back to haunt him in a few times with his negotiations with Gorbachev later
00:47:40.760
Um, he got a lot of flack for his, uh, stance and, you know, he's a warmonger, et cetera.
00:47:53.400
Was he, or was he, I've always wanted, I've always wanted to, I thought the president is
00:48:00.680
always best when he has kind of a twitchy eye, not to the American people.
00:48:07.160
It's bad when he, when the American people are like, good God, I think he might do it.
00:48:11.420
But to the adversary, somebody who has that cowboy spear, like, you don't know, I might
00:48:19.200
So was he, was he the cowboy with a twitchy eye or was he prepared to blow up the evil
00:48:27.740
He was never prepared to blow up the evil empire.
00:48:32.800
He thought mutually assured destruction was the craziest thing he had ever heard of.
00:48:44.780
In fact, um, we, uh, we owe Nancy Reagan a great, uh, a great debt.
00:48:52.380
Nancy Reagan, as I was writing this book, I thought, well, you know, I had written a book.
00:48:57.540
I was the Beatles biographer and Yoko Ono was the heavy in the Beatles biography.
00:49:03.060
People always think that it was Yoko who broke up the Beatles.
00:49:08.220
Um, and I thought, well, here I have my Yoko Ono character from the outset.
00:49:13.580
And wow, I couldn't have been wronger than wrong.
00:49:17.280
Um, Nancy Reagan had one thing in mind, and this goes back to your question about would
00:49:24.480
She had one thing in mind, and that was to preserve her husband's legacy for the future.
00:49:30.500
And she wanted him to be known as a man of peace.
00:49:34.420
And so very early in the first term, she keeps saying to him, make peace with the Soviet Union.
00:49:42.880
Find some common ground that you can talk to them.
00:49:46.340
And when Reagan's in the hospital after the assassination attempt, he writes what his staff
00:49:51.480
thought was a very fluffy letter, handwritten to Brezhnev saying, if we could only sit down
00:49:58.980
and talk like two men across the table, I know we could solve all the world's problems.
00:50:03.440
Typically, Ronald Reagan, you know, they decided not to send that letter.
00:50:09.360
Mike Deaver said, they've always been telling you not to send those things.
00:50:18.280
He basically wrote that same letter to Gorbachev later on.
00:50:22.420
So, you know, Ronald Reagan was never looking at war as a possibility.
00:50:26.380
He was looking at peace all throughout his presidency.
00:50:31.340
And that comes, excuse me, by the way, from his childhood.
00:50:38.260
But he had a reasonable partner with Gorbachev.
00:50:43.740
He found a man who was not a rock hard ideologue.
00:50:52.260
We always envision him as like this cuddly little guy.
00:51:01.960
Ronald Reagan, and this is when he knew he had Gorbachev.
00:51:05.700
He came away from their first meeting in Geneva, shaking his head.
00:51:12.380
Gorbachev kind of intimated that he believed in God.
00:51:30.100
I think it kept bringing Gorbachev back to the negotiating table.
00:51:36.500
When they get to Reykjavik later on, they are this close away to eliminating nuclear weapons.
00:51:51.820
But I think it played out because these were two men who found that not only could they talk to each other,
00:51:59.220
but they weren't closed individuals and they both wanted peace ultimately.
00:52:03.600
And Gorbachev has, of course, been excoriated now for it.
00:52:08.240
How difficult was it for Ronald Reagan to walk away?
00:52:15.560
It was the most difficult moment, aside from the Challenger blowing up, the shuttle Challenger, in his presidency.
00:52:24.040
Jim Kuhn, who was his executive assistant with him every day, all day,
00:52:28.700
told me that when he got into that car and left Reykjavik, he was consumed with anger.
00:52:40.380
He was angry at the situation, angry that they were that close and neither man could get right further.
00:52:49.220
And just angry that—angry with the world at that time.
00:52:52.820
I mean, he really—he had a brief moment where things got very dark for him.
00:52:57.860
Was there ever a time—I remember I lived in New York—I lived in Washington, D.C.
00:53:19.160
And I remember, I was on the air, and I remember keeping the old teletype door open
00:53:28.800
And I was—I was—I remember thinking, I am in the blast zone.
00:53:38.320
I think the only time—and this is just a strange story.
00:53:42.940
And John Poindexter, his third security advisor, told me this story.
00:53:49.800
The trickiest time was when the Achille Laro incident occurred.
00:53:57.360
And the two guys who shot Leon Klinghoffer got away.
00:54:06.800
And he had put them on a plane to let them escape.
00:54:11.480
Mubarak told Reagan, oh, they've left Egypt a long time ago.
00:54:14.900
But Israeli intelligence said, and they haven't left.
00:54:19.340
We have men who have seen them here, and we know what plane they're leaving on.
00:54:24.560
So Reagan sent up three fighter planes, one with their lights off, to tail the jet.
00:54:33.400
And they used flashlights to see the tail number to make sure they had the right plane.
00:54:42.440
He sent a jet out behind him and a jet on either side of the plane.
00:54:46.480
And they turned their lights on at one time and told them that they had to land, because we wanted those two terrorists.
00:54:58.140
Poindexter had called Reagan, who was giving a speech at the Sarah Lee factory in Chicago, of all places, and said, there's a good chance that they will not land the plane.
00:55:08.020
And Reagan said to him, then bring it down by any means necessary.
00:55:13.140
So that was the one time that we came close to an international incident that might have steamrolled into something much, much bigger.
00:55:23.260
Do you think if Reagan could see where we're at now with Islamic extremism, he would have treated Beirut differently?
00:55:31.560
Oh, I think he would have treated Beirut differently the day after that Marine barracks blew up.
00:55:39.280
What do you think he would have done, should have done?
00:55:47.840
He gave them to McFarlane to go in there and get those guys.
00:55:54.260
And Caspar Weinberger called Reagan that night, bypassing the White House phones.
00:56:02.260
And he called through the office of the Marine who carries the football, knowing that nobody would be able to intercede.
00:56:09.420
And he talked Ronald Reagan out of retaliating.
00:56:13.440
McFarlane told me he was furious with Weinberger.
00:56:16.400
I mean, it was against the whole American policy at the time and the orders that Reagan had given.
00:56:25.280
And I think Reagan would have gone in there and wiped them out.
00:56:45.840
Well, you know, I have the luxury of talking to all his advisors.
00:57:00.260
McFarlane told me that he first broached the subject to Reagan when Reagan was just coming out of anesthetic.
00:57:12.920
And he went in and said, Reagan had one thing in mind, and that we had seven hostages who were still in captivity.
00:57:30.880
His advisors told me, please don't meet with the families because they knew it would pull his heartstrings.
00:57:37.120
But he wanted those hostages home, and he wanted them home for Christmas.
00:57:49.160
We've found a faction in Iran who are, we believe, moderates.
00:58:00.200
And if we give them a number of missiles for which they will release the hostages, they might, with these missiles, have some power and overthrow the Ayatollah one day.
00:58:14.400
He heard, bring the hostages home, overthrow the Ayatollah.
00:58:22.260
Well, once you say let's explore that, all the machinery went into play.
00:58:28.940
And unfortunately, McFarlane had an associate, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who was more than happy to really make it happen.
00:58:43.160
But along the way, Reagan was told that this could be illegal.
00:58:48.700
There was a meeting in the residence of the White House with all the top brass.
00:58:53.040
It was McFarlane and Poindexter and George Bush and Weinberger and George Shultz.
00:59:02.720
And Weinberger and George Shultz had never heard of this before.
00:59:08.960
They said it was absolutely—I mean, Shultz told me, he said, this is absolutely illegal.
00:59:15.100
And Reagan, he kept wanting to pursue it because, you know, a little more leeway and we'll get a hostage back.
00:59:28.180
So we gave them another 500, and we got one back, not all seven that they promised.
00:59:34.380
Soon they were talking about, you know, sending 3,500 missiles over, which they did.
00:59:39.900
They did, through the Israelis, through back to Iran, so that it couldn't be traced.
00:59:49.840
The Israelis were giving them to Iran from their stockpile of missiles we had given the Israelis.
00:59:57.700
And then we said, we'll replenish your stockpiles after you give them.
01:00:01.540
Oh, boy, it just—it snowballed and snowballed and snowballed.
01:00:05.040
And at one point, somebody said to Reagan, you know, this isn't going the way we want.
01:00:11.240
If this ever gets out, you know, we're really going to be in trouble.
01:00:25.120
It was against American law that we had established.
01:00:29.920
But he did it because he wanted those hostages back.
01:00:35.040
I have a postcard, a little letter written on Ronald Reagan's stationery.
01:00:42.500
And it was written to his daughter, Patty, the day that it came out in the press that he had Alzheimer's.
01:00:55.280
It is the most heartbreaking letter ever where he talks about, I remember, the little girl who used to sit on my lap and ask me to marry her.
01:01:09.480
Um, tell me about his, tell me about the last few years and the, and the, the, the, not only the slipping away, but the, the slipping away of the family.
01:01:26.600
Well, let, let me at least set the scene for you with the Alzheimer's.
01:01:32.260
Um, his chief of staff, Fred Ryan, who was there the day he was told, really laid it out.
01:01:40.580
And it's one of the saddest scenes in the book.
01:01:44.800
And he was at home with Nancy and she said, Ronnie, we, we really have to tell you a few things.
01:01:54.300
And she sits him down and she brings Fred Ryan into the room, who's going to be their chief of staff post-presidency and his doctor.
01:02:03.700
And she said, the doctor has something really important to tell you.
01:02:06.660
And he tells Reagan that he has signs of Alzheimer's disease.
01:02:25.220
But while the, the doctor and Fred and Nancy are talking about how we're going to get through this, Reagan gets up out of the chair and walks over to a little desk that's by the window in his library.
01:02:37.320
And he sits down and he writes that letter to the American public, explaining what he's going through and what they can expect from him.
01:02:51.000
And if you've seen that letter and it was published, there are no cross outs.
01:03:04.140
He walks over and interrupts the conversation and says, Fred, you know, I think we should put this out.
01:03:13.020
And Ryan looks at it and he said, Mr. President, we're going to put this out in your own handwriting.
01:03:28.640
The head of the Reagan Foundation told me she cried when she read that that scene in the book because it's Reagan.
01:03:37.120
You know, he six months out of office on July 4th, he and Nancy are taking a horseback ride in Mexico at the home of the ambassador.
01:03:51.580
And he he falls off the horse and he hits his head.
01:03:56.860
And, you know, I'm not a doctor, but everybody who saw him thereafter says this was the beginning of the end.
01:04:07.740
And friends told me about how he would come to parties at their homes in L.A.
01:04:13.380
And, you know, he would sit in a chair and he just he wasn't himself anymore.
01:04:18.680
He got to get snappish with his his family and with some of the younger kids, the grandchildren.
01:04:25.540
And but he still went to the office every day, read the Hollywood trades every day.
01:04:33.160
I mean, he he stayed active as long as he could.
01:04:50.400
He said he said in this letter, he said, I don't even remember what we're arguing about anymore.
01:04:59.780
It was just that there was I think there was a lack of the parental expression of love there.
01:05:07.200
The love that Reagan had gotten from his mom and dad.
01:05:14.720
And it's I think the one flaw of serious fall in character that's in my book.
01:05:23.560
His kids have told me that he he never put his arms around them and told them that he loved them.
01:05:32.840
And yet he loved Nancy and seemed to really be affectionate with Nancy.
01:05:41.140
I think there wasn't room for anybody else in his heart.
01:06:01.280
There's a scene in Michael Reagan's book where he's graduating from high school.
01:06:11.160
And when Michael walks up to get his diploma, Reagan shakes his hand and says,
01:06:26.760
When it came to family, he wasn't the family guy.
01:06:31.920
And I guess Nancy really wasn't the warm and fuzzy mom that somebody like Patty and Ron needed.
01:06:44.740
But it was a difficult, as so many of us have difficult relationships with our parents.
01:06:52.260
You started this because you were looking for somebody.
01:07:11.140
This is the most wonderful thing about my job as a writer.
01:07:14.440
I get to write about the Midwest and the settling of the Midwest, about the birth of broadcasting games on radio, about coming to Hollywood just two years after, three years after talkies with all the studio politics and the golden age of cinema and the birth of conservatism in the Republican Party.
01:07:50.480
And that's why I feel like this, together with the Beatles, is a life's work.
01:08:06.680
Yeah, my friend Neil Gabler wrote his biography.
01:08:08.880
And I've asked people before, try to imagine an America or a world without him.
01:08:24.720
And it gave us a Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.
01:08:31.820
They gave us this sense of the little guy struggling, but they're going to win and it's happy.
01:08:37.020
You know, imagine a world without Ronald Reagan.
01:08:43.520
And this is why I have led such a charmed life.
01:08:46.240
I wrote about the Beatles, who have changed the way we regard music in this world.
01:08:51.460
I wrote about Julia Child, who changed the way we eat and live.
01:08:59.520
Would you come back and talk to us about the Beatles and Julia Child?
01:09:18.480
And I have to tell you, you know, Glenn Beck in my household when you were on TV was.
01:09:26.620
But I knew that this was going to be a really easy talk just because I've listened to some
01:09:39.060
And really, in a lot of ways, and my liberal friends will kill me for saying this, the voice
01:09:48.300
On election night, can you, he said, what kind of world do we live in?
01:09:55.720
And they said, well, he said, what kind of world do we live in when Glenn Beck is the
01:10:03.400
I'm like, we are in deep trouble if I'm the voice of reason.
01:10:06.140
But guys like you, guys like me, guys who've had strong opinions about things before, who
01:10:13.420
have something deeper in their heart, can sit back and say to themselves, I'm not going
01:10:21.720
I'm going to believe in my core values, which Reagan did as well.
01:10:37.280
And I wanted my older kids, as well as myself and my wife, to decide who we are.
01:10:45.680
And I lined up a conversation with my family and this woman who was one of the righteous
01:11:02.260
And I think we are living in those times right now.
01:11:04.660
She said, I said, I believe everybody has the potential of being a righteous person.
01:11:13.660
You know, everybody has the potential of doing what she did.
01:11:21.660
And she looked at me perplexed and she said, you misunderstand.
01:11:30.420
The righteous didn't suddenly become righteous.
01:11:33.600
They just refused to go over the cliff with everyone else.
01:11:37.860
And it's, all we have to do is just remind people, you know better than this.
01:11:45.380
The one question I'm glad you didn't ask me, which everybody else does, it may be too
01:11:50.780
obvious, is how would Ronald Reagan have felt about Donald Trump?
01:12:06.120
I don't know if you've heard me speak about Trump.
01:12:10.080
I think this is the darkest and the scariest I've ever felt as an American.
01:12:15.780
I was concerned about Barack Obama because of the people he surrounded himself with early
01:12:22.860
All you have to do is take the skeletons out of the closet, show everybody, and explain it.
01:12:28.100
And the fact that we were starting to grow apart and not only grow apart, but grow the
01:12:36.440
power of the office and the media, that's dangerous.
01:12:42.160
And I warned on Fox over and over again, don't do this, Democrats, because someone's going
01:12:48.360
to come and it may be on our side and you're not going to like it.
01:13:02.680
I thought the country had more common sense than this.
01:13:07.340
It was my people that I had been talking to forever.
01:13:18.900
And I don't know where we're going with it either because.
01:13:21.400
I was really concerned, what was it, yesterday when the Democrats came out and said, they
01:13:34.620
We need some fresh voices in here very quickly because the old order doesn't know how to
01:13:51.400
Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on
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to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.