Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, June 8, 2004

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, Dr. Martin Anderson reveals that the new examination of the Reagan legacy will go far beyond the Government Printing Office’s “Public Papers of the Presidents” or the other reams of speeches and papers composing the official archived record.

A Hoover Institution fellow since 1971, Anderson served as special assistant to former President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1971 and as domestic and economic policy adviser to former President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982. He is also the co-editor of “Reagan In His Own Hand” (2001) and “Reagan: A Life in Letters” (2003), both with co-editors Anelise Anderson and Kiron Skinner.

Dr. Anderson also served as a confidant of Gov. Reagan during and between his two campaigns to win the White House.

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, Anderson was brimming with enthusiasm as he said, “We are just beginning to digest what we have” – referring to a wealth of Reagan tapes, letters and writings.

When former first lady Nancy Reagan opened the former president’s desk and large store of personal boxes to close friends, a treasure trove of the Great Communicator’s thinking emerged in the form of numerous yellow legal pads and letters filled not only with wisdom but also with careful analyses of domestic and foreign policy.

According to Anderson, the great store – part of which he uncovered personally in the former president’s desk – forever dispels whatever lingering misinformed notion of the uninitiated that Reagan was an “amiable dunce.”

“We discovered that the guy has been writing all his life,” says Anderson. “We kept marveling at the clarity of his writing, but also the breadth of issues.”

“When dealing with these left-wing intellectuals,” Anderson tells NewsMax, “the only thing that will change their mind is a piece of paper. It’s like holding up a cross in front of a vampire.”

Anderson said on the occasion of the publication of “Reagan In His Own Hand” that people would decide for themselves the literary and intellectual merit, maintaining, however, that Reagan comes across as nothing less than a “one-man think tank.”

One five-page script from Reagan’s desk alone, entitled “Mr. Minister,” contained what Anderson and experts on foreign policy call the president’s “talking points for the entire U.S. strategy” in opening U.S.-Soviet relations.

Relying on the trove, Anderson and his co-editors are about to publish yet another volume of Reagan writings entitled “Reagan: Path to Victory,” due to be published in September.

The title does not refer to his vaunted victory in the Cold War but rather his political victory in gaining the highest political office in the land.

The Political Dust Is Falling

As he culled through the wealth of tapes and documents – many ironically discovered in the archives of the Hoover Institution – Anderson confesses an epiphany to NewsMax:

“What I thought I knew [as a confidant of the president] I found I didn’t know. Reagan’s success and accomplishments were not accidental or because he was lucky. Like many who achieve fame and fortune, it was through hard work.”

As to whether the media in the current Reagan blitz are being fair:

“I think the media [are] getting it,” referencing that on at least one current broadcast a fistful of Reagan’s carefully crafted letters was held up as testament that the leader thought and spoke for himself. Bob Novak just called him an “intellectual,” Anderson recalls, obviously pleased.

“For the first time in 15 years a lot of the political dust is falling,” says Anderson. This has cleared the way for an unbiased examination of “discovering how he did what he did.”

“There have been all kinds of rationales put forward,” Anderson confides to NewsMax. “The truth of the matter is that he was smart, sensible – and tough.”

How was Reagan tough?

“Someone said it better than I when they said he was ‘warmly ruthless,’” responds Anderson.

By way of example, the author recalls to NewsMax a session of the Reagan Cabinet where the idea of a national identification card was heralded:

“Everybody was saying it was a great idea,” recalls Anderson, “the CIA, the FBI, State. ... It was going to cost about two billion dollars. I said to myself, ‘What the hell,’ and raised my hand. The president recognized me and I proceeded to say I had a better idea – why not just tattoo a number on everybody. Watt, the secretary of the Interior, chimed in, ‘The sign of the Beast!’

“Well, Reagan just leaned forward and said, ‘Maybe we could take the babies and brand them.’ That ended the discussion, and the issue never came up again.”

‘All the Guy Did Was Work’

After that brief anecdote, Anderson returned enthusiastically once again the subject of Reagan’s strength:

“When we put everything together chronologically, we came to the conclusion that the man was running for president long before he announced,” said Anderson, who has put all the Gipper’s years of radio essays on CD-Rom.

“He was really the Rush Limbaugh of his day,” Anderson concludes. “When he was offered television by Walter Cronkite, he turned it down to stick with radio.”

Meanwhile, as the American public shows its affection for its late leader, Anderson noted, “Reagan: A Life in Letters,” which had enjoyed a modest stint as a best seller, has jumped literally overnight to No. 11 on Amazon.com.

Much of Anderson’s coveted source materials are the first-draft final drafts of radio talks given for five minutes five days a week.

There are five years of these essays – all written by Reagan and many quoting scholarly journals, noted Anderson.

“They were not written for posterity,” Anderson said, but they prove that Reagan read widely, analyzed nearly every complex issue of the day, and stated his position with compelling literary quality.

“It’s extraordinary to see these written out in hand. You see his corrections. You see his mind at work. I know a lot of intelligent people who can’t write. But I don’t know any person who writes this well who is not intelligent.”

After the discovery of the caches, Anderson and other editors interviewed Reagan’s secretary and drivers, who traveled and stayed with him between 1975 and 1979.

“Very few people were around him when he was writing,” Anderson disclosed. “They said, ‘All the guy did was work. He read all the time. Wrote all the time.’”

Part of that prolific correspondence, Anderson recalls to NewsMax, includes many letters between him and Richard Nixon. “It all began in 1959 when Nixon wrote to Reagan to compliment him on a speech he had made. Reagan wrote back and never stopped writing. They stayed in touch.”

Anderson recalls when Nixon was under intense pressure to resign in the wake of Watergate and certain folks wrote to Reagan to have him endorse the idea of Nixon stepping down.

“Reagan wrote across the top of the letter: ‘Hell no.’”

Star Wars

Anderson likes to further recount the evolution of the Strategic Defense Initiative:

In 1979, Reagan visited NORAD headquarters under Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain, where the U.S. and Canada track missile launches around the globe. The future president was amazed when an Air Force general told him that the only thing they could do about a Soviet missile attack was provide a few minutes’ warning.

“We have spent all that money and have all that equipment and there is nothing we can do to prevent a nuclear missile from hitting us,” he said.

When President Reagan introduced SDI in his 1983 speech, he took most people by surprise – but Anderson and other careful scholars know the issue of American vulnerability had been fulminating in his mind for a long time.

History has proved since that SDI was, among other things, a dramatic diplomatic coup, forcing the Soviets to return to arms talks they had abandoned.

In the introduction to “Reagan: A Life in Letters,” Anderson notes that President Reagan had extensive personal correspondence with American and foreign leaders:

“Even if some of these letters were sent to the Correspondence Unit, they were not typically answered by staff. Letters from leaders of closely allied countries, such as Canada, Great Britain or Japan, might go to the National Security Council for review, but letters to leaders for whom President Reagan had developed a close personal relationship were sent to his office. Many of these replies were written by President Reagan himself.

“President Reagan wrote wherever he was and whenever he had time to write. He wrote letters in the Oval Office, in his study at the White House, at Camp David, on the helicopter ride to Camp David, and on long trips on Air Force One. Some of these locations were listed on his stationery.

“President Reagan often wrote letters during weekends at Camp David on yellow legal-size paper, ready for typing on official stationery.”

One Reagan staffer recalled: “He was a secretary’s dream because he had all the information on the top [of the letter]: the name, the address, the zip code, and the telephone number if there was one. ... [Reagan] didn’t need editing. They [his letters] were fine. Everything was usually perfect.”

Poetically, in a letter dated Nov. 5, 1994, Ronald Reagan informed his fellow Americans that he had Alzheimer’s disease.

“Attention was focused on the message,” noted Anderson, “but the medium was itself something of a statement. He might have used television or radio, but instead he said goodbye in a letter.”

Over the course of his life Reagan may have written upward of 10,000 letters, said Anderson.

“He wrote his own legacy.”

Americans will be reading.

Editor's note: