Doug Wead
Friday, June 11, 2004

We have been reminded that there was a general sense of malaise. Reagan’s predecessor is criticized for making a speech about it but in fairness it was a view that was widespread and shared by many intellectuals, including some Neocons on the right. Remember, Henry Kissinger was actually picked up by a microphone at an event in Canada saying that this was the coming era of the Soviet Union.

There was a sense that the pioneer and entrepreneurial spirit of America had vented itself, that it was over, we were entering a more mature phase of history, similar to that of other great nations with long histories in Europe.

People were aghast at Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech. It was so dangerously provocative. It was the conventional wisdom to believe that the Soviet leaders were just as responsible as the leaders of any other people. To believe anything else was unthinkable. Denial was even preferable to discussion.

I had friends in the Netherlands during this time who told me that school guidance counselors in that country were telling their students that it didn’t really matter which university they attended, the world would be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration within a decade anyway.

Remember Pol Pot, who murdered 3 million of his own countrymen in order to have a more refined base to practice his purist version of Marxism? This crisis reached its peak the week that Ronald Reagan announced for the presidency. I remember speaking to Reagan about it at a dinner party in his home. This was the sort of world he was facing.

When the Reagans came to power, the economy was in shambles and the poorest Americans were taking the brunt. Double-digit inflation, the poor man’s tax, diminished the purchasing power of welfare recipients and senior citizens on fixed incomes. Many of the rich, with land or other investments, actually profited. And again, it was the poor and the middle class who were hurt the most by the long gas lines.

I mention Nancy Reagan too, because when she entered the White House as first lady, drugs were having an enormous impact on us as a society and she faced that issue squarely. The threat was very real for the Untied States. Remember, China had once taken to opium and the greatest nation in the world had gone to sleep for a hundred years.

Drugs were a part of our American pop culture. They were openly winked at by our late-night television comics. Drug paraphernalia was fashionable. Movies and music featured druggies as stars. But by the time Nancy Reagan was through, drugs were ugly. And if the problem was not completely solved, it had certainly been lanced by all of that action in the East Wing.

President Reagan was always an example for the corporate leader, a man who delegated well, a man who looked at the big picture, a grand strategist who allowed others to follow through and stayed out of their way.

But declassified information shows just how involved he was in the unraveling of the Soviet Union. When the Soviets were on their last gasp and Gorbachev was begging for some small consideration, Reagan refused to take the bait and instead ardently lobbied the Saudis to up their oil production and force down prices to further deprive the Soviets of much-needed hard currency from the sale of their own oil. It is hard to imagine how it all would have turned out if Reagan’s steady hand had not been there.

What made everything possible was Ronald Reagan’s gift to communicate directly to the American people. In recent years we have talked about Bill Clinton as a great communicator, and he indeed seems to have an easy rapport with people. But according to news industry surveys, for all his personal charm, Bill Clinton started with a media that had overwhelmingly voted for him, wished him well, and only at the very end of his administration developed hostility.

Reagan, on the other hand, faced a more difficult task. He was portrayed by many in the media as a racist and warmonger, out of his depth intellectually. Every speech to the American public was bracketed by media interpreters who weighed in to make sure we “got it.” In time this role of Big Brother media dissolved into a more benign opposition.

Many in the media may have been personally condescending about his economic plan, dubious about his star wars technology and alarmed by his hard-ball tactics with a seemingly amenable Soviet Union, but nevertheless they returned to their role as journalists, less passionate and sure of their opposition, more willing to let him have his say. This was the real genius of Reagan, the great communicator. It was his ability to cut through the fog and speak his common sense.

It is hard for us now to feel or even understand the fear and despair we felt before Ronald Reagan’s time in the White House, but it is good for us to try to recapture it. Perhaps the gift that will endure the longest is that the next time we fall into such straits there will be someone to remind us that we have been here before and it was not as bad as we thought.

Doug Wead was an adviser to President Reagan and is the author of the best-selling "All the Presidents' Children."

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