Ronald Reagan

 

Editorial

      The recent attacks on Ronald Reagan are also attacks on President Bush; both are cut from the same cloth in matters of national defense. Each confronted the enemies of the United States; each used tax cuts to get the country out of recession. Mr. Reagan succeeded in reviving the economy and defeating Communism; President Bush is following in the footsteps of his mentor.

      Both Reagan and Bush sought judges of honesty and judicial integrity who would interpret the law rather than make it. Judicial activism has continued from the Reagan days. The Democratic Party is frank in saying the U.S. Constitution is a living document, meaning it can be interpreted out of existence. The Senate will not allow nominees to come to the Supreme Court unless they conform to the political philosophy of that party. What of their integrity when they swear to uphold the Constitution and say with their actions they will destroy it?

      The Reagan presidency began in 1980 with double-digit inflation, high unemployment, and a prime interest rate of 21.5 percent, the highest since the Civil War. The country had lost faith in itself. Under Carter, it no longer believed we were the spiritual leader of the world and the great defender of democracy. Reagan protested this pessimism because he believed America was and must be a shining city on a hill, blessed with a constitution that made us a responsible republic. He revived the spirit of America.

      In practical matters, Mr. Reagan followed Calvin Coolidge, a greatly underrated president. Though a union president who had led a strike, and the first president who was a lifetime member of the AFl-CIO union, Reagan forbade a strike by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. Coolidge said, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” Reagan agreed. Those who did not return to their jobs lost them, and the country was safer than before the strike. Coolidge came into office after World War I when the national debt was enormous. After he cut the tax rate, government revenues increased so the debt was paid off. Reagan followed this example.

      Correcting the sick economy was the first order of the day. A Muslim philosopher of the 14th century, Ibn Khaldoon, wrote:

At the beginning of the dynasty taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.

      Reagan agreed. He believed that the more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. This applies to the working man, the small business man, and large corporations. If you reduce taxes and allow people to spend or save more of their wages, they will work harder. The result will be greater wealth for everyone.

      Any system that penalizes success and accomplishment is wrong. Any system that discourages work, discourages productivity, discourages economic progress, is wrong.

      Economists then and economists now call this “supply-side economics.” Reagan called it common sense. He quoted Harry Truman who said, “Find me a one-armed economist, because every one I know always says, ‘Well, on the other hand. . . . ’”

      With the tax cuts of 1981 and the Tax Reform act of 1986, Reagan accomplished much of what he set out to do, but not enough, he thought. In the first six years of the lower tax rates, income for the federal government increased by $375 billion, but Congress increased spending by $450 billion. Congress defeated savings by attaching continuing resolutions to everything Reagan proposed. If he failed to sign the bills, the government would shut down. The need, said Reagan, was to discipline spending, create a constitutional requirement to balance the budget, and have a line-item veto so the president could delete “pork,” the great fount of political corruption.

      The tax cuts did not show their effect for more than a year. The prime interest rate was down from the 21.5 percent of the Carter years, but only to 15 percent, which was not good enough. The country had added more than 250,000 new jobs, but the unemployment rate was at 8.4 percent, the highest in six years.

      Reagan Said:

Tip O’ Neill used every opportunity he got to lambaste me as a “rich man’s president” who cared nothing about the little man, the unemployed, or the poor, and said my economic program was a “cruel hoax.” The press wrote that my program had failed, my honeymoon with Congress was over, and I’d have to give up everything I’d fought for during that first year. Public opinion polls showed that a lot of Americans agreed with that; they blamed us, not Carter, for the recession.

      Reagan stayed the course. With Tip convinced the Reagan policy would destroy everything he had fought for all his life, O’Neill sent out the word that any Democrat who supported tax cuts and reduced spending would receive discipline from the party. He went public and accused Mr. Reagan of having horns and attempting to destroy the nation.

      In 1981, shortly after his inauguration, Reagan flew to Ottawa for an economic summit with a meeting of the seven great industrial nations. They had little interest and a great deal of skepticism about his economic plans—cutting taxes and removing political interference in economic affairs. He was new on the job, an innocent. Two years later, when Mr. Reagan was chairman of the conference, Helmut Kohl of Germany spoke up, “Tell us about the American miracle.” The economic miracle had begun in the U.S. and would be an example for Europe’s doldrums. In 1984 he met with Jean-Claude Paye, General Secretary of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Mr. Paye was urging all European countries to free up their economies so they could catch up with American economic recovery.

      Reagan tried to prevent the spread of communism in Central America, and he had some success in spite of the opposition of Congress for the eight years of his presidency. Not only was he unable to get the support of Congress to stop the spread of Communism in our part of the world, he was unable to persuade the American people of the need. He approached countries south of our border with conversation rather than lectures. These countries were tired of hearing about plans for economic recovery but having nothing done about it. Reagan did not lecture, did not promise. He listened and told them the only way to prosper. Cut taxes, allow private wealth to work without government interference, making sure that private wealth did not become as corrupt as government.

      President Kennedy committed a great error with Cuba. Cuban refugees started planning for an invasion of their country under President Eisenhower. When the Cuban refugees were ready and had landed on Cuban shores, with our aircraft ready for support against Castro’s tanks, heavy weapons, and the airport, Adlai Stevenson rushed down from his meeting in New York with the United Nations and told Kennedy he had promised the United States would not interfere in any way with Cuba. Kennedy let the refugees die on the beach, or be captured. He did not allow our planes to give support to assist an escape. So Cuba remains today a Communist country and did great harm with Central America. “I’ve always thought it was a tragic error for President Kennedy to abandon the Cuban freedom fighters during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion,” Reagan said.

 

      The greatest achievement of President Reagan was to contribute to the death of Communism. He was not solely responsible because the Soviet Union had many internal problems; Mr. Reagan recognized them. The country was in economic shambles because socialism is inefficient; they were using their assets for war, which was bankrupting a society already in deep trouble. He found that leaders of the Soviet Union were afraid of us. He knew citizens long for freedom though dictatorships oppose it, and they do not want to live in fear. He said there was a better way to govern and there was a better way to live.

      The Sovietologists and specialists opposed Mr. Reagan, as did the press. Communism was firmly established in the 1920s, and Polish scholars and publicists analyzed Communism for what it was, but scholars in this country did not see what was in front of them. After Sputnik in 1957, when it was clear the Soviets were ahead of us in technology and we could be targets of their power, the reaction was of fear. “They might kill us.” Sovietologists dreaded nuclear war and decided they must be conciliatory. They were idealists who thought people the world over were the same, and if we loved them they would love us. Lavishly endowed by foundations and the government, professors of political science, economics, and sociologists committed to “groupthink,” and found unanimity in their beliefs. Some differences were permitted. You could argue that the Soviets were more stable than us, or less stable, but were not permitted to say they were unstable.

      Reagan dismissed these specialists and said dictatorships only understood power. He believed that we had to rebuild our military. President Reagan was appalled at the thought of nuclear war and could not imagine the life of any who survived such a war. The Pentagon estimated that at least 150 millions lives would be lost in a nuclear war. Specialists, European leaders, and millions of people in this country and around the world were afraid of the consequences if the U.S. armed itself as the Soviets did, and opposed Mr. Reagan. He continued to build the military until it was the equal of the Soviets, and stronger.

      Mr. Reagan thought the best method to make progress was direct conversation and correspondence, away from the intrusion of bureaucrats, so he talked with each leader of the Soviets, beginning with Leonid Brezhnev. Mr. Brezhnev was not cordial and accused the United States of being the aggressor.

      While Mr. Reagan was trying to increase our strength, the Democrats fought him tooth and nail. They wanted to cut the military budget by $163 billion over five years, increase Social Security spending by $200 billion, and increase taxation by $315 billion. Believers in diplomacy were shocked by Mr. Reagan’s determination but he developed the Strategic Defensive Initiative, aimed at defense against attacks from missiles, once again to the annoyance of politicians and the media.

      After Mr. Brezhnev, when  Yuri Andropov became president of the Soviets, Mr. Reagan continued his policy of direct communication. Mr. Andropov, in his reply to Mr. Reagan’s first letter, said there could be no improvement in the relationship between the two countries unless the United States did not install missiles in Europe. His letter was clear and well reasoned, but it ignored the fact that, without missiles in Europe, the West could be overwhelmed by the Soviets. Mr. Reagan thought the Soviets were not truthful. Also, while the presidents of the two countries exchanged letters, a Soviet military plane shot down a Korean airliner, killing 269 innocent citizens, including a U.S. congressman and sixty other Americans. The goodwill of the Soviets was questioned.

      Faced with ugly facts, the Pentagon changed course and said that nuclear war was “winnable,” meaning they were ready to engage in such a war. Mr. Reagan had no intention of being involved in a nuclear war but continued to believe the Soviets would only respond to strength. Once again, Democrats and some Republicans said we should throw in the towel and raise taxes. They agreed with Mr. Andropov who said, “A heavy blow has been dealt to the very process of nuclear arms limitation.”

      Mr. Androprov was succeeded by Konstatin Ustinorich Chernenko. Mr. Reagan, with the advice of Helmut Kohl, West German Chancellor, and George Schultz, our Secretary of State, concluded that the Soviets were afraid of us and thought we meant them harm. Mr. Reagan wrote to Chairman Chernenko saying,

Neither I nor the American people hold any offensive intentions toward you. The United States has a history of restraint even in a time when we had a monopoly on nuclear power.

 There was some mellowing in allowing a Pentecostal family to leave Russia. They had been living for four years in the basement of the U.S. embassy in Moscow and would have been arrested if they left the embassy. Their crime was a belief in their religion and in God. But Mr. Chernenko was frail and only a spokesman for the leading party members. Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, took charge. He believed in the rightness of the Soviet positions, that Communism would triumph over capitalism, and eventually rule the world.

      With the death of Chernenko, the succession came to Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr. Reagan wrote to him expressing the hope the two countries would find a mellowing of their relations. Thus began an exchange of letters and meetings that would end in opening the Soviets to the outside world, ending the cold war.

      Mr. Gorbachev was a firm believer in Communism, believing the United States was the aggressor in the world, but he also believed an improvement in the relations between the two countries was necessary. The first meeting of these two men was in Geneva. Mr. Gorbachev made a long speech saying American munitions makers were the chief obstacles of peace, were the ruling class in America who kept the people riled up so they could make more money. U.S. think tanks did the same thing he said. The United States, said Mr. Gorbachev, had declared zones of interest around the world and criticized the Soviets for doing the same thing.

      Give and take discussions continued after lunch, with Mr. Gorbachev stating his beliefs and Mr. Reagan rebutting. After lunch the two men went to a small cottage where they could talk freely without interruption by bureaucrats. In the discussion of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Gorbachev was stubborn in opposition, but so was Mr. Reagan in its defense. In spite of differences, there was something likeable in Mr. Gorbachev, warmth in his face and his style, not the coldness bordering on hatred that showed in the faces of most Soviet officials. When they came back to the general meeting after their one-on-one meeting by the fireplace in a small cottage, Mr. Reagan told the American delegation he had arranged two more meetings with Mr. Gorbachev. The American delegation almost went through the ceiling in surprise.

      Early in 1986 the Soviet economy was in trouble. Mr. Gorbachev knew it and realized his country would have to accept arms reduction. He was a Russian patriot who believed in Communism but knew it was not working. His attempts to fix the system with glasnost and perestroika failed because Communism was idealistic but not practical. It had bankrupted his country economically and spiritually. Mr. Gorbachev had the intelligence and courage to open Soviet gates and minds so people could move where they chose and think freely. He even allowed Mr. Reagan to speak to the students of Moscow State University where he said, “Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom.”

      The last meeting between Gorbachev and Reagan was in December 1988, six weeks before the Reagans were to leave the White House. George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan went to the waterfront in Lower New York and looked at the Statue of Liberty.

George then left us alone and Gorbachev and I went down to the dock to say our good-byes. We recalled some of the things we’d said during our first meeting at Geneva about the importance of building trust between our two countries and agreed that we had come a long way since then. Gorbachev said he regretted that I couldn’t stay on and finish the job, and I have to admit there was a part of me that wanted to do that. But I had enormous faith in George Bush, and I knew the country was in good hands.

      Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were two of the greatest men of the 20th century, and the civilized world is in their debt. Ronald Reagan showed himself to be one of the outstanding spokesmen of the American way of life that the country has ever known. His deeds were an expression of his character. He had a firm grasp of principle. He was always polite. He was always a gentleman. In the words of Richard Pipes who worked for Mr. Reagan in the White House, Ronald Reagan was a kind, gentle, and very decent man.

      (Except for a few words about Sovietologists, all of the above has been taken from Ronald Reagan: An American Life, an autobiography published in 1990 by Simon and Schuster, two years after Reagan left the White House. The book is a classic with letters to and from three presidents of the Soviet Union. Patriotic Americans should make sure the book is never out of print because the America of Mr. Reagan is under attack from within and without.)     Ω