Christopher Ruddy
Monday, June 21, 2004

Typical of Reagan, he didn’t do it by trickery or deception, just by being himself as others misunderstood or underestimated him.

So, just how did he fool us in his passing?

Story Continues Below

  Well, consider how long he hung around.

Remember, it was 1994 when Reagan first gave notice of his Alzheimer’s disease in an open letter to the American people.

Almost from that day, the establishment began writing his obituary. I can remember some five years ago meeting Michael Reagan for lunch at one of his favorite restaurants in Los Angeles.

As we sat down to eat, I gently raised the issue of his father’s health. “Mike, I just heard that a conservative magazine has contacted some famous folks asking for comments about your father. They say his passing is likely soon.”

Mike Reagan didn’t blink an eye: “That’s news to me. I just saw Dad and Nancy in Bel Air [at their home] this weekend and Dad was swimming laps in his pool.”

Swimming laps! I was astounded.

Michael explained that his father had swum all his life and was just on automatic.

Since that lunch over five years ago, there would be occasional stories that President Reagan’s passing was imminent –obviously, most of these turned out to be false – as Michael scoffed at them through the years.

So, there he goes again: Reagan fooling us.

Even in the laudatory eulogizing of Reagan, we were fooled.

In the days after his death, the media focused on Reagan’s sunny disposition, his optimism, his Hollywood appeal, his charm, his great communication skills as the key determinants of his success.

But that was hardly the case. There have been other men (and women) who were better looking, spoke more eloquently and perhaps were smarter who never made the impact Ronald Reagan made.

Fittingly, Reagan explained his success in his last Oval Address to the nation on Jan. 11, 1989. In that address, Reagan expressed surprise that he had won the nickname “The Great Communicator.”

“But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference. It was the content,” Reagan humbly explained.

“I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation – from our experience, our wisdom and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

There it was in black and white.

But many of us would prefer to be fooled – certainly the major media would have it that way – and not believe that Ronald Wilson Reagan was a great man for the reason he said: He expressed and exemplified the conservative vision for America.

Truth told, Reagan did not always reveal his real self, another reason he fooled so many.

In recent years, I visited Dr. Martin Anderson, one of Reagan’s closest aides dating back to his days as governor of California in the 1970s.

Dr. Anderson told me bluntly: “Reagan fooled us. We were all fooled.”

It was a remarkable revelation from a man who had been so close to Reagan and had already written extensively about him.

What sparked Anderson’s recent revelations about Reagan were thousands of new documents just unearthed at the Reagan Library – including Reagan’s personal papers before he became president.

These papers – letters, op-ed articles and radio commentaries – were all written in Reagan’s own hand. They showed that Reagan was a terrific writer (he almost never made a grammatical error), erudite and exhaustive in his search for truth.

But the documents also showed that “Reagan worked all the time,” Anderson said.

It was clearly an impression that Reagan did not like to give to others, according to Dr. Anderson.

A brilliant economist in his own right, Anderson says he had always thought Reagan was bright. But now he had to conclude that the man was closer to being a genius.

Anderson discovered that Reagan had taught himself to read at the age of 5 and began reading daily newspapers at that age.

How could we have been fooled for so long about Reagan’s genius?

Reagan kept his intellect a secret, Anderson surmises, because he learned at an early age that the smartest kid in class is often the least popular.

The degree that Ronald Reagan fooled us for so long has been demonstrated in three books Anderson has co-edited with his wife, Annelise, and Kiron Skinner.

Their first tome was “Reagan In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America,” followed by last year’s “Reagan: A Life in Letters.” A third book, “The Path To Victory: The Shaping Of Ronald Reagan's Vision: Selected Writings” is slated for release this fall.

These new scholarly discoveries laid the groundwork for the media’s generally positive attitude toward Ronald Reagan after his passing. It is difficult to deny such an overwhelming body of evidence that buttresses Ronald Reagan’s public record of achievement – even if the Gipper himself fooled us.

Editor's note: