Book Review: Reagan: The Life, by H.W. Brands (2015)

Paperback cover of Reagan: The Life, by H.W. Brands, 2015.

Historian and author H.W. Brands.

Deified by conservatives and demonized by liberals, Ronald Reagan was one of the most significant presidents of the 20^th century. H.W. Brands’ 2015 biography Reagan: The Life is a cradle to grave examination of Ronald Reagan’s extraordinary life. 

Most of Brands’ book focuses on Reagan’s eight years in the White House, but he does a good job of outlining Reagan’s unlikely path to the presidency. Reagan started out as a radio announcer, and then became a film actor. In 1953, as Reagan’s career in the movies was tapering off, he accepted a job on television as the host of General Electric Theater. Reagan also became a spokesman for GE, and at the end of nine years, he estimated that he had toured 135 GE plants and spoken in front of 250,000 people. Reagan’s time at GE proved to be the perfect training ground for his next career move. 

Originally a New Deal Democrat, Reagan had gradually moved to the right politically during the 1950’s and early 60’s. In 1964, Reagan gave a televised, 30-minute speech in support of conservative Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Titled “A Time for Choosing,” the speech did little to aid Goldwater’s hopeless campaign, but it boosted Reagan’s standing considerably. For the first time, people began to talk about the 53-year-old Ronald Reagan as a possible political candidate. Reagan was elected Governor of California in 1966, and re-elected in 1970. Ten years later, he won the presidency.

Reagan was “an intuitive student of history and politics rather than an analytical one.” (p.424) Long policy discussions were not Reagan’s forte. Reagan dealt in the factual rather than the theoretical. Brands compares Reagan to FDR, and makes the point that they were not strict ideologues. They both had strong ideological beliefs, but both men were willing to be pragmatic and compromise when they had to. Reagan wasn’t quiet about his admiration for FDR, saying in 1989, “Franklin Roosevelt was the first president I ever voted for, the first to serve in my lifetime that I regarded as a hero.” (p.706) 

Reagan’s leadership style was laid-back in the extreme. Since he was a big-picture visionary and not a detail person, he was more than happy to cede the management of those details to his staff. While that can work fine if you’re delegating tasks to, say, Secretary of State George Shultz, trouble might ensue if you’re delegating things to people like National Security Advisors Bud McFarlane and John Poindexter, two of the major figures in the Iran-contra scandal. 

Reagan had a fascinating personality for someone who became President. Non-confrontational in the extreme, Reagan was carried through life to a large degree by his considerable charm and charisma. Brands explained some of Reagan’s appeal, writing: “People could disagree with Reagan, but rarely did they find him disagreeable.” (p.209) I think people are sometimes tempted to read more into Reagan’s personality than was really there. You might think there must have been some hidden depths to this man who seemed so nice and positive and so untroubled by life. But I’m not sure there were any turbulent waters in the psyche of Ronald Reagan. Donald Regan, Secretary of the Treasury and later Chief of Staff for Reagan, wrote of his boss: “Never—absolutely never in my experience—did President Reagan really lose his temper or utter a rude or unkind word. Never did he issue a direct order, although I, at least, sometimes devoutly wished that he would.” (p.487) Unlike politicians who constantly curse, in the diary that Reagan kept during his Presidency, he wrote dashes in swear words, so hell and damn become “h—l” and “d—n.” (p.564) I can’t imagine Richard Nixon doing that.

A key to Reagan’s appeal was his relentless optimism. As Brands writes: “Reagan focused on the positive parts of any experience, convinced they held the key to its meaning. This habit constituted one of his great personal strengths, making him almost unsinkable emotionally. It was also central to his political success. Pessimism pervades the thinking of conservatives, who tend to believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket. They might be right, but they aren’t fun to be around.” (p.630) 

For me, one of the highlights of the book was Brands’ recounting of the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit, where Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev almost agreed to the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The two leaders came heartbreakingly close to an agreement, but Reagan’s refusal to agree to any limitations on the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known in the media as “Star Wars,” scotched the deal. However, the talks at Reykjavik led to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, one of the highlights of Reagan’s foreign policy. 

Brands is a sympathetic biographer of Reagan, and there are times when he gives Reagan perhaps more of the benefit of the doubt than he deserves. Brands doesn’t dwell on the parts of Iran-contra that Reagan didn’t play a part in—like Oliver North shredding documents. And Brands isn’t critical of Reagan’s light schedule as president, never mentioning that Reagan spent 345 days of his presidency at his California ranch, Rancho del Cielo. (President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon, p.465)

Unless you’re a detailed student of history, most presidents are reduced in the collective memory to a few sound bites. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have a few more sound bites in the collective memory than most other presidents. Kennedy and Reagan don’t have the longest list of legislative accomplishments from their terms in office. However, both these men have inspired countless people, in large part because they were such excellent public speakers. As Brands writes, “Reagan communicated effectively not least because he gave essentially the same speech again and again. The particulars and the anecdotes varied, but the message never did.” (p.734) That might be Ronald Reagan’s ultimate gift: that he made people feel good about America again.