Reagan summary

In 1937, Reagan drove to Hollywood. And straightaway, he was sent for a makeover. Makeup and wardrobe were nonplussed. With his midwestern aw-shucks demeanor and decent, but not drop-dead-gorgeous, face, he hardly cut the figure of a Hollywood dreamboat. “They must think I’m Houdini,” grumbled the makeup artist when she first saw Reagan. 

But the makeup artist’s opinion didn’t end up mattering. Reagan loved acting, and the camera loved him. He was a hit. He bought his parents a house, and gave his father a job looking after his fan mail. He also met and married Jane Wyman, an up-and-coming actress. These were happy, charmed years. 

Things were getting exciting for Reagan. He’d found a new career in Hollywood politics. But things weren’t so good at home. As Reagan turned away from acting, his wife, Jane, became more and more successful. They grew apart, and, in 1947, they separated. 

But he wouldn’t be single for long. A young actress, Nancy Davis, had her eye on Reagan. She orchestrated a meeting, and the two started dating. After a long courtship, they married in 1952. The two would be partners for over five decades. 

Republicans in California started talking about a Reagan-for-governor campaign. It was perfect timing: civil rights and the student movement of the 1960s was triggering a backlash of conservatism, not only in California but throughout the country. Reagan’s principled stance of old-fashioned conservative values was popular in opinion polls. When influential conservatives threw their support behind him, Reagan was ready to announce his candidacy.

His platform was small government and the rights of individuals. He railed against the students protesting at Berkeley, and the tendency of Democrats to seek votes by pandering to “hyphenated Americans,” a derogatory term that’d been applied to unnaturalized citizens since the late nineteenth century. Reagan used it to refer to members of minority populations, such as “African-Americans” and “Mexican-Americans,” both of which were stylized with a hyphen at the time. And his message hit home: he won the Republican primary two-to-one against his opponent, and went on to win the election by a million votes.

Challenging the incumbent Gerald Ford in the presidential race of 1976 was a desperate move. But, at 65, Reagan was already old by American political standards, and he wasn’t sure how much of a career he had left. He didn’t mind splitting the Republican Party and he didn’t mind that President Ford had the machinery of government to use in his favor. 

He lost the primary to Ford, but, by the end, Reagan had more visibility than ever before. He didn’t use his new platform to support Ford, though. You see, Reagan believed that the best thing for the country would be for Ford to lose to Jimmy Carter, which would finally discredit Republican moderation. Whether Ford’s loss truly was the best thing for America is up for debate. But one thing’s for certain: Jimmy Carter’s win was the best thing for Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s first order of business after his 1981 inauguration was the economy. Cutting taxes is politically easy, because it makes everyone happy. Cutting spending is politically hard, because it causes everyone pain. Reagan decided to start with the easy part. Speaking to Congress, he presented his four-part economic plan. He called for a 10 percent tax cut across the board. He also called for $49 billion in government spending cuts, deregulation, and monetary policy reform. He couldn’t bring this plan home by himself; he would need Congress’s support. 

But before he could begin lobbying in earnest, disaster struck. As Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after a speech, he was shot by a deranged man hoping to get the attention of the actress Jodie Foster. Coughing up blood, he was rushed to the hospital. He collapsed immediately upon arrival. 

Reagan’s victory lap didn’t last long. He may have scored a tax-and-budget win, but he was struggling to find his foreign-policy footing. The Caribbean basin was in the crosshairs of his National Security Council. Communism was spreading in the region, emanating from Cuba, which was backed by the Soviets. Nicaragua, where the Soviet-backed Sandinista party was threatening the US-backed government, was particularly worrying.

The administration decided to arm the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua, known as the contras. Publicly, Reagan adopted bellicose rhetoric, saying his administration would do “whatever is necessary” to ensure peace in the Caribbean. Listeners also understood that, to Reagan, “peace” meant the suppression of communism. Some of the action he took would be extremely controversial, like planting mines in Nicaraguan harbors to disrupt supplies from the USSR and Cuba.

In March 1985, Reagan learned that Mikhail Gorbachev had been named leader of the Soviet Union. His administration was happy with the choice. Gorbachev was a reformer, and he was smart enough, they thought, to bring the USSR back to the negotiating table. In a letter delivered by Vice President George H. W. Bush, Reagan pledged to engage Gorbachev seriously in negotiations. 

But arms negotiations weren’t the only things on Reagan’s agenda. The economy and the situation in Nicaragua were still primary preoccupations. He paid considerably less attention to the details of policy papers, not to mention to his staff: in an unprecedented move, his chief of staff switched jobs with his treasury secretary. It was soon up for debate whether Don Regan, the new chief of staff, was up to the job. Nancy Reagan, for one, was no fan. Remember that name – Don Regan. He’ll reenter the story in Blink 10. 

Lebanon had been at war with itself for years. By 1985, the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah had kidnapped seven Americans for ransom. The administration agreed to a transfer of weapons from Israel to Iran, in exchange for Iran’s promise that the hostages would be released. When only one was freed, the administration oversaw more and more weapon transfers to Iran, in the hope that more hostages would be let go. 

At the same time, Reagan was at war with Congress over funding the Nicaraguan contras. Congress had barred him from supporting them. But, meanwhile, without the president’s knowledge, members of his own administration had gone rogue. Oliver North, a member of the National Security Council, had put between $3 and $4 million in proceeds from the Iran weapons sale into an account that the contras could access. North had decided not to tell Reagan, so that the president would have plausible deniability regarding the arrangement. 

As Reagan was recovering from Reykjavík, things went from bad to worse. It came out that the US had sold weapons to Iran right before American hostages in Lebanon were released. It looked like the two were connected, but Reagan swore to Congress – and the American people – that they weren’t. 

People didn’t buy it. According to one poll, only 14 percent of Americans believed him. But it was only when the attorney general dredged up Oliver North’s secret bank account of Iranian money provided to the Nicaraguan contras that Reagan understood that he might have actually broken the law. Whether or not he knew about it wasn’t the issue. He remained responsible for what happened on his watch. And, increasingly, it seemed that what had happened on his watch had been illegal.