[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 6, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1054-S1058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CELEBRATING PRESIDENT REAGAN'S 90TH BIRTHDAY
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this is a remarkable day in American
history. Today we celebrate the 90th birthday of Ronald Reagan, the
40th President of the United States. As a Senate, we send to him our
heartfelt best wishes for his continued recovery from a recent surgery
and we thank him for all that he has done to make America, the Shining
City on the Hill. Ronald Regan stands in the first rank of freedom's
pantheon. Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
I ask unanimous consent that an article highlighting Ronald Reagan's
early journey through politics, Rehearsals for the Lead Role, written
by John Meroney, associate editor of The American Enterprise, be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2001]
Rehearsals for a Lead Role
Ronald Reagan was a liberal, an actor; a labor chief, but
some unscripted plot twists forged a new character
(By John Meroney)
Hollywood.--All day, memories had been flooding back to
him. Riding home from the airport across the west side of
L.A., he was traveling the same streets he had driven years
before. Back then he knew the town by heart, and used to
drive it with the top down on his green Cadillac convertible.
As the car pulled into the residence of 668 St. Cloud Rd.
in Bel Air, the city was beginning to slip into the afternoon
dusk. Millions of tiny lights would soon fill the L.A. basin,
a scene he always thought remarkable. And looking out across
it on that January day when he became a private citizen 12
years ago, Ronald Reagan knew that had it not been for the
events of his life in this place, he probably never would
have been president.
This week, Ronald Reagan will join John Adams and Herbert
Hoover as the only presidents to reach the age of 90. An
entire generation knows him only as president or as the
ailing statesman living in seclusion. Even though Reagan was
a movie star who appeared in 53 motion pictures, and is
unique among presidents in that so much from his early years
is preserved on film for posterity, that critical part of his
life has largely become forgotten history.
His movies rarely appear on television. (During the 1980
presidential campaign, Federal Communications Commission
officials banned them from broadcast because they asserted it
gave him an unfair advantage.) Dozens of books have been
written about him, but the three decades he spent as a movie
star and labor leader are given scant attention in most.
This is remarkable given that Reagan's life during the
1940s and '50s was often more dramatic than the parts he
played. He lived in surroundings so compelling that they have
formed the basis of many great films, such as ``Chinatown''
and ``L.A. Confidential.'' Writers from Raymond Chandler to
James Ellroy have for decades carved their stories from
Reagan's era in Hollywood. The town was at the height of its
glamour, and was steeped in national political intrigue. And
Ronald Reagan not only witnessed this, but was a central
figure to much of it.
Recently, new details about his life have emerged,
presenting a more accurate and deeper understanding of him.
Last fall, Nancy Reagan published a collection of dozens of
love letters and personal correspondence her husband wrote
that reveal a creative and passionately emotional side to the
40th president. A collection of 677 scripts for radio
commentaries that Reagan wrote by hand during the 1970s was
recently discovered by researchers, and is being published
this week. They document a man with clearly defined ideas
about public policy.
Still, there persists the caricature of Reagan as a B-movie
actor who used the talents he honed on soundstages in Burbank
to
[[Page S1055]]
attain high office where he stumbled into the end of the Cold
War. Even his conservative supporters have perpetuated this
view. Reagan national security adviser Robert McFarlane once
remarked, ``He knows so little and accomplishes so much.''
But a close review of the historical record, and recent
interviews with those who knew Reagan best during the 1940s
and '50s, show a man profoundly affected by his experiences
as a movie star and six-term president of the Screen Actors
Guild. He emerges as a complex individual who--through what
he once described as intense ``philosophical combat''--
changed his political ideology. Contrary to assertions (which
Reagan himself often encouraged) that he became a Republican
because the Democratic Party abandoned him, Reagan actually
went from being a staunch liberal who participated in
Communist front groups to a stalwart anti-communist because
of his firsthand experiences dealing with Communist Party
members.
History sometimes reveals the moments and incidents that
mold and shape our presidents. Most of Ronald Reagan's
occurred here. In part, he is simply a man who loved (as he
called them) ``pictures''--being in them, talking about them
and the business of making them. But it was a growing
obsession with politics that sharply diminished his acting
career, helped destroy his first marriage, and changed his
life forever.
Reagan's involvement with the Screen Actors Guild spanned
more than a decade, and even before he became president of it
in 1947 (a position that paid him no salary or benefits), he
immersed himself in its work. He would often speak
extemporaneously for extended periods on the labyrinthine
matters of the industry workforce, impressing professional
negotiators with his knowledge of thorny labor issues.
The nature of Reagan's role as labor leader isn't the only
part of his life that runs counter to the popular perception.
In the years after his divorce from actress Jane Wyman in
1948, Reagan was living a life that most who know him best as
the grandfatherly president would never recognize. Indeed,
Reagan was handsome, rich (spending in excess of $750 a month
on dinners and nightclubs) and dating some of the most
beautiful actresses in the business.
Hollywood was booming. It was, as David Niven once
described it, filled with great personalities, but controlled
by arrogant moguls, overcrowded and smelling of despotism,
nepotism and blacklists. Los Angeles supposedly had more
swimming pools and private detectives per square mile than
any other place in the world.
``The Gipper'' Is Born
When Reagan arrived in Hollywood in May 1937, the country
was still in the Depression, but L.A. still had a grand style
about it. Virtually all of the residences Reagan had here
still exist, and are largely unchanged. His first apartment
was at the elegant Art Deco Montecito apartment building on
Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. Today, as one walks into the
lobby and then the unit that he rented, the romance and
glamour of the era become obvious.
Barely 12 months later, Reagan's career was in full
flourish. By the end of 1938, he had already made nine
pictures. ``Brother Rat,'' the story of cadets at the
Virginia Military Institute, is perhaps the best among them.
More important, he had fallen in love with his co-star,
Wyman, and they married just over a year later. The Warner
Bros. publicity machine was churning out press releases
touting them as the new all-American couple.
Jack Warner typically knew a good thing when he saw it, and
from the moment of Reagan's screen test, he took a liking to
the young man from Dixon, Ill. Now, Reagan seemed to be
exceeding expectations. For years, he had dreamed about
making a movie based on the life of the legendary Notre Dame
football star George Gipp, whose deathbed words became a
rallying cry for the Fighting Irish. In his spare time,
Reagan would make notes about a possible film. And when he
heard that Warner had given the green light to a picture
about Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne, he saw his chance.
``I've been a great fan of Gipp's throughout his career,
and I've read just about everything that's been written on
him and Rockne,'' Reagan told Pat O'Brien, who was signed to
play Rockne. ``I can play the part. I won't let you down,''
he pleaded. Studio records show that Reagan beat out both
John Wayne and William Holden for the part of Gipp. ``Knute
Rockne, All American'' was released in 1940. And the line
``Win one for the Gipper" eventually became as synonymous
with a politician as ``I like Ike.''
By the middle of 1941, Reagan was making almost $2,000 a
week. He and Wyman had built a house on Cordell Drive, just
above Sunset Boulevard, with a sweeping view of the city.
(Record producer Richard Perry lives there now.) And Warners
was about to release ``Kings Row,'' a film that it had been
holding for a year, afraid of how audiences might react to
its depiction of an idyllic small town that turns sinister.
Reagan gives what is arguably the best performance of his
career as Drake McHugh, a happy young man with a bright
future who wakes up after a train accident to discover his
legs have been needlessly amputated. ``Where's the rest of
me?!'' he screams.
On a hot July day of that year, Wyman suggested to SAG
Executive Director Jack Dales that her husband would be the
best candidate to fill a vacant alternate position on the
SAG board of directors. ``I remember Jane looked at me and
said, `My husband might be president of SAG one day,' ''
Dales remembers today. ``Then she added, sort of jokingly,
`Who knows, he might even be president of the United
States.' '' With that, Ronald Reagan's life began to take
a completely different turn.
A Witness Testifies
On April 10, 1951, in Room 226 of what is now the Cannon
House Office Building on Capitol Hill, actor Sterling Hayden
was under oath, describing to members of the House Committee
on Un-American Activities what had caused him to join the
Communist Party. ``There was something boiling inside of
me,'' said Hayden, whose unforgettable face made him look
like one of the toughest characters in all of Hollywood.
(Years later, he would play the Air Force general who sets
off nuclear war in ``Dr. Strangelove'' as well as the corrupt
police captain in ``The Godfather.'')
``I felt reluctant accepting the very lucrative and easy
life Hollywood had offered me,'' he said. ``All of it planted
a seed: If I could do something about the conditions of the
world, I could probably justify my position as an actor. I
was appalled at what the Communists were telling me. I would
get propaganda literature, scan it, and then burn it up.''
Hayden said he left the Communist Party after being
convinced it was ultimately being directed by Joseph Stalin.
``Joining was the stupidest, most ignorant thing I have ever
done,'' he said. Hayden said Communists tried to paralyze
entertainment industry labor unions so that all studio
workers would eventually be organized under one gigantic
union controlled by the party itself, and he was asked what
stopped them. ``They ran into Ronald Reagan, who was a one-
man battalion.''
An FDR Disciple
Although he was a captain in the Army, Reagan spent most of
World War II in Culver City, Calif., because his
nearsightedness prevented him from being in combat. His
responsibility while stateside was to help administer the
Army Air Forces 1st Motion Picture Unit at the Hal Roach
Studios, making military training and promotional films.
Making ``This Is the Army,'' a 1943 musical for Warners,
and watching Franklin Roosevelt prosecute the war, stirred
Reagan's longings to be a part of it. It also increased his
zeal for the leadership in Washington. ``Ronnie really
idolized FDR,'' remembers Dales. ``I mean, you have to
understand, Ronald Reagan thought Roosevelt was a true
savior. And by getting involved with the politics of the
Guild, he heightened his reverence for FDR's abilities.
There's no question that I think he imagined himself having a
major role in our industry that way.''
Biographer Edmund Morris once interviewed a man in the
Signal Corps who encountered a distraught Reagan all alone on
the studio lot just after FDR's death in 1945. ``He seemed
really stricken, like he had a migraine,'' said Elvin
Crawford. ``When he looked at me I saw he was in despair.
`Oh, sergeant, I don't know what's going to happen to this
country.' ''
As the celebrations of victory in World War II ended,
Americans were flush with success in practically every area
of their lives. Some 90 million were going to movies every
week. And within what seemed like just a moment, Hollywood
was on the front lines of the Cold War.
The Era of FBI Surveillance
Today, the concern about Soviet subversion that gripped the
country through the late 1940s and '50s seems odd. After all,
the Soviet Union had been an ally during World War II. But
once no less an authority than Winston Churchill announced
that ``an iron curtain has descended'' across Europe in his
famous 1946 speech in Fulton, Mo., and he warned that the
Communist Party was ``seeking everywhere to obtain
totalitarian control,'' Americans began to look at Soviet
influence in a different light. Washington had become
aggressive in its efforts to investigate possible subversion
and infiltration from elements deemed loyal to Stalin, and
because films and entertainment reached such wide audiences,
Hollywood seemed a ripe target for propaganda.
On Capitol Hill, the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) convened hearings in October 1947, at which Reagan
testified. Although he cooperated with the HUAC, he resented
government interference in the business he loved, later
calling the panel (which included another future
president, Richard Nixon) a ``pretty venal bunch.''
The FBI conducted surveillance on thousands of prominent
Americans, including Reagan. But Reagan was also helping J.
Edgar Hoover gather information about others, and agents
first visited him in 1941. While most of the information
Reagan provided pertains to possible Communist influence, the
FBI appears to have been interested in anything politically
controversial. In 1943, for example, he told an agent about a
party where anti-Semitic statements were made. ``Captain
Reagan became highly incensed and withdrew from the
conversation,'' according to the report contained in Reagan's
partially declassified FBI file. ``He said that he almost
came to blows'' with someone who had spoken disparagingly
about Jews.
In every war, there is injustice and unfairness, and the
Cold War was certainly no different. Careers were
sidetracked, others destroyed. Actress Jane Wyatt (TV's
``Father
[[Page S1056]]
Knows Best'') is one example of someone who was inadvertently
caught up in organizations that eventually turned out to be
Communist front groups. Wyatt was blacklisted, and in order
to work again, she had to publicly criticize the party.
Director John Huston, who worked at Warner Bros. during
Reagan's time there, was sympathetic to those on the
blacklist. In his memoirs of Hollywood published in 1980, he
wrote: ``There is no doubt in my mind that the Communists
were out to proselytize, to win converts. But there is also
no doubt in my mind that activity in no way posed a threat to
national security. The Communists I knew were liberals and
idealists, and would have been appalled at the idea of trying
to overthrow the United States government.''
Hollywood Has No Blacklist
Part of the journey to understand how this backdrop
influenced Reagan's life and eventually the presidency takes
one to--of all people and places--Hugh Hefner and the Playboy
Mansion. Hefner recalls that in 1960, he had heard about a
dinner with Reagan and Homer Hargrave, a friend of Hefner's
who was the son of silent film star Colleen Moore. It came
just after Playboy had published a favorable story about
Charlie Chaplin, who was then a stalwart supporter of the
Soviet Union. ``Thank God for Communism,'' Chaplin said in
1942. ``They say Communism may spread all over the world. I
say, So what?''
In addition, Playboy had also published an article about
the Academy Awards by screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of
the Communist Party from 1943 to 1948. He famously refused to
answer questions from the House Un-American Activities
Committee and served 10 months in prison in 1947 for refusing
to testify. He rejoined the party briefly in 1954.
Starting in November 1947--in response to charges that the
industry was infiltrated by subversives--the studios adopted
an industry-wide policy forbidding the hiring of anyone
suspected of communist sympathies. For Trumbo, the blacklist
period was a financial hardship, but like many on the
blacklist, he continued to write scripts under pseudonyms.
And in 1960, he again began to work under his own name when
Otto Preminger announced he'd hired Trumbo to write the
script for ``Exodus.''
``When Trumbo wrote his story for us, he was just starting
to come out of the shadows,'' remembers Hefner. Reagan and
Trumbo had both been members of the liberal Hollywood
Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and
Professions (HICCASP, as Reagan called it, ``pronounced like
the cough of a dying man''), later revealed to be secretly
supported by the Communist Party. At the dinner, Reagan told
Hargrave that considering Chaplin and Trumbo's defiant
attitudes about communism, he found Hefner's support for them
galling. Hargrave mentioned the remark to Hefner.
``When I heard what Reagan said, I wrote to him,'' says
Hefner. ``I liked `Kings Row' and all that, but I was also
unhappy about what had happened during the blacklist era. And
so I told him.''
What Hefner received in response--six pages, handwritten on
Reagan's personal stationery--is, perhaps, a more precise
rendering of the former president's personal and ideological
transformation than has ever appeared in the legion of
books and articles written about him. It surfaces very
briefly in Morris's book on Reagan, but until now the 1960
letter has never been published in its entirety.
July 4.
Dear Mr. Hefner: I've been a long time answering your
letter of May 13 and my selection of--The 4th--as an
answering date is coincidence plus the fact that Holidays
are--free time--days around our house:
Your letter has been very much on my mind and I question
whether I can answer in a way that will make sense to you.
First because I once thought exactly as you think, and second
because no one could have changed my thinking (and some
tried). It took seven months of meeting communists and
communist influenced people across a table in almost daily
sessions while pickets rioted in front of studio gates, homes
were bombed and a great industry almost ground to a halt.
You expressed lack of knowledge about my views, political
back ground etc. Because so much doubt has been cast on
``anti-communist,'' inspired by the radicalism of extremists
who saw ``Reds'' under every ``cause,'' I feel I should
reveal where I have stood and now stand.
My first four votes were cast for F.D.R., my fifth for
Harry Truman. Following World War II my interest in
liberalism and my fear of ``neo-fascism'' led to my serving
on the board of directors of an organization later exposed as
a ``Communist Front,'' namely the ``Hollywood Independent
Citizens Comm. of the Arts, Sciences & Professions''!
Incidentally Mr. Trumbo was also on that board.
Now you might ask who exposed this organization as a
``Front''? It was no crusading committee of Congress, the
D.A.R. or the American Legion. A small group of board members
disturbed by the things being done in the organization's name
introduced to their fellow board members a mild statement
approving our Dem. system and free enterprise economy and
repudiating communism as a desirable form of govt. for this
country. The suggestion was that by adopting such a policy
statement the board would reassure our membership we were
liberal but not a ``front.'' The small group who introduced
this measure were such ``witch hunters'' as James Roosevelt,
Dore Schary, Don Hartman, Olivia de Havilland, Johnny Green &
myself.
Leaders of the opposition to our statement included Dalton
Trumbo, John Howard Lawson and a number of others who have
since attained some fame for their refusal to answer
questions. I remember one of their group reciting the Soviet
Constitution to prove ``Russia was more Democratic than the
U.S.'' Another said if America continued her imperialist
policy and as a result wound up in a war with Russia he would
be on the side of Russia against the U.S. We suggested this
``policy statement'' was perhaps a matter for the whole
organization to decide--not just the board. We were told the
membership was ``not politically sophisticated enough to make
such a decision.''
When we resigned the organization went out of existence
only to reappear later (minus us) as ``Independent Citizens
Committee of the Arts, Sciences & Prof.'' in support of Henry
Wallace and the Progressive Party.
The ``seven months'' of meetings I mentioned in the first
paragraph or two refers to the jurisdictional strike in the
Motion Pic. business. There are volumes of documentary
evidence, testimony of former communists etc. that this whole
affair was under the leadership of Harry Bridges and was
aimed at an ultimate organizing of everyone in the picture
business within Mr. Bridges longshoreman's union.
Now none of what I've said answers your argument that
``freedom of speech means freedom to disagree,'' does it?
Here begins my difficulty. How can I put down in less than
``book form'' the countless hours of meetings, the honest
attempts at compromise, the trying to meet dishonesty, lies
and cheating with conduct bound by rules of fair play? How
can I make you understand that my feeling now is not
prejudice born of this struggle but is realization supported
by incontrovertible evidence that the American Communist is
in truth a member of a ``Russian American Bund'' owing his
first allegiance to a foreign power?
I, like you, will defend the right of any American to
openly practise & preach any political philosophy from
monarchy to anarchy. But this is not the case with regard
to the communist. He is bound by party discipline to deny
he is a communist so that he can by subversion & stealth
infuse on an unwilling people the rule of the
International Communist Party which is in fact the govt.
of Soviet Russia. I say to you that any man still or now a
member of the ``party'' was a man who looked upon the
death of American soldiers in Korea as a victory for his
side. For proof of this I refer you to some of the ex-
communists who fled the party at that time & for that
reason, including some of Mr. Trumbo's companions of the
``Unfriendly 10.''
Hollywood has no blacklist, Hollywood does have a list
handed to it by millions of ``movie goers'' who have said
``we don't want and will not pay to see pictures made by or
with these people we consider traitors.'' On this list were
many names of people we in Hollywood felt were wrongly
suspect. I personally served on a committee that succeeded in
clearing these people. Today any person who feels he is a
victim of discrimination because of his political beliefs can
avail himself of machinery to solve this problem.
I must ask you as a publisher, aside from any questions of
political philosophy, should a film producer be accused of
bigotry for not hiring an artist when the customers for his
product have labeled the artist ``poor box office,''
regardless of the cause?
I realize I've presented my case poorly due to the
limitations of pen & paper so may I ask one favor? Will you
call the F.B.I. there in Chi. ask for the anti-communist
detail, then tell him of our correspondence (show him my
letter if you like) and ask his views on this subject of
communism as a political belief or a fifth column device of
Russia.
Now my apologies for having taken so long in answering your
letter and my appreciation for your having taken the time to
write in the first place.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan.
I asked Hefner whether he took Reagan's advice. ``Growing
up,'' he answered, ``FBI agents were my heroes. I saw Cagney
in `G-Men' when I was a kid. But by the '50s I had already
had visits from them, and they had harassed my ex-wife. So to
say that Reagan's suggestion fell on deaf ears is an
understatement.''
Standing Up Against Communism
A scene from 1946, once recounted by Reagan: The setting is
the posh residence of a top star, a meeting of the HICCASP.
Reagan is running late, and arrives to grab a seat next to
MGM studio head Dore Schary.
``Lots of people here I didn't think I'd see,'' he says.
``Stick around,'' answers Schary.
FDR's son James stands to propose adopting a statement
denouncing communism and the Soviet state. ``I was amazed at
the reaction,'' remembered Reagan. One musician stands to
assert that the Soviet constitution is superior to the
American one. A screenwriter says he'd volunteer for Russia
if war between it and the United States ever broke out. ``I
decided that an Irishman couldn't stay out, and took the
floor and endorsed what Roosevelt said.'' Pandemonium. Reagan
recalled one woman having a heart attack.
[[Page S1057]]
The meeting breaks up. Schary tells Reagan, ``We're meeting
up at Olivia de Havilland's apartment.''
Reagan goes over to find about a dozen HICCASP members
celebrating how they'd just smoked out the Communists.
Reagan is looking at de Havilland, grinning.
``What's so funny?'' she asks him.
``Nothing,'' he says, ``except I thought you were one.''
She looks at him, smiling, ``I thought you were one. Until
tonight, that is.''
Rival Unions
Aside from Dales, the man Reagan worked mostly closely with
during his days as SAG president, it was Roy Brewer. An FDR
New Dealer, Brewer had grown up in Grand Island, Neb., and at
age 19, as a projectionist at the Capital Theater, ran the
1927 version of ``The Jazz Singer,'' all 15 reels of it.
Brewer became a top labor official in Nebraska, and rose
quickly to prominence in the International Alliance of
Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), part of the American
Federation of Labor. When he arrived in Hollywood in 1945 on
a mission to mediate what appeared to be a jurisdictional
strike, he walked into a dispute between his IATSE members
and a rival labor group, the Conference of Studio Unions,
headed by Herbert Sorrell. What he also discovered was an
industry that during the war had attracted a wide variety of
characters--some who thought Hollywood was their ticket to
fame and fortune, and a very small minority who were pushing
political agendas.
Reagan was initially on the side of the strikers, but after
he became convinced that the real objectives of those behind
the strike were detrimental to the industry, he became a fast
ally with Brewer. The two were soon confidants, and were
featured together in Fortune magazine as two of the most
influential figures in the business. By 1948, Reagan and
Brewer were co-chairing the Hollywood campaign for Harry S
Truman's reelection.
Reagan and Brewer believed Sorrell's group was trying to
force the entire film community to accept an industry-wide
union headed by Harry Bridges, leader of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union, who had attained fame from
organizing the San Francisco waterfront strike of 1934.
Records that have emerged since the end of the Cold War seem
to support this claim, and also show that Bridges was a
Communist Party member.
``Ronnie and I saw that the way things were going, it would
be impossible for the studios to produce any movies at all,''
Brewer says today. Historians on both sides of the political
spectrum now estimate there were approximately 300 party
members in Hollywood during this era, and some of them have
since admitted that while a concerted effort was underway to
insert propaganda into films, the more important immediate
goal was to seize control of the unions because they held the
financial keys to all of the industry.
Reagan's increasing involvement in the affairs of the
industry seemed to come at great personal cost. Threats were
made against his life, and Warner's issued him a .32, which
he began wearing in a shoulder holster.
A union transcript of a divisive SAG meeting late one night
at the Knickerbocker Hotel during October 1946 shows Reagan
aggressively confronting rival union organizer Sorrell:
``I have had to have guards for my kids because I got
telephone warnings about what would happen to me because of
my activities in trying to settle this strike.
``Now, smile. I don't know where the telephone calls came
from. I know I took them seriously and I have been looking
over my shoulder when I go down the street. Now, I know there
are people from both sides in the hospital. I know it has
been a vicious and deplorable thing in our business. I have
never given up for one minute trying for peace, because I
believed if the two factions wanted peace, there must be a
grounds upon which they can meet. . . .
``Herb, as far as I'm concerned, you have shown here
tonight that you intend to welsh on your statement of two
nights ago [about settling the strike], and as far as I am
concerned, you do not want peace in the motion picture
industry.''
Those who would know Reagan later in life say these
experiences shaped his presidency, and eventually the way he
approached the Soviets. ``That era was a major influence on
him,'' says Edwin Meese, attorney general under Reagan. ``He
said it gave him a good sense of the tactics used by the
Communist Party, and a sense for their methods of subversion.
There's no question it was pivotal.''
But it was also devastating to his marriage. In early 1948,
Wyman sued him for divorce, complaining that her husband's
life revolved around the union. His discussions ``were far
above me,'' and ``there was nothing left to sustain our
marriage.''
Said Reagan: ``Perhaps I should have let someone else save
the whole world and saved my own home.''
Moving On
By the early 1950s, with the back of the Communist Party in
Hollywood now essentially broken, Reagan found that securing
work for former Communists and others who were innocently
caught up in the blacklist was one of the responsibilities
of his volunteer job. Along with Brewer and Dales, Reagan
would vouch for actors and others in the industry who
publicly broke ranks with the party.
It was this role that partly accounted for his first
substantive meeting with actress Nancy Davis in 1949. Of
course, Reagan was an eligible bachelor, and Nancy knew it.
But she also wanted Reagan to protect her, and make sure
industry leaders knew she wasn't politically controversial.
``I told her director, Mervyn LeRoy, that I'd take care of
it--having made the switch from Ronald Reagan, actor,
regretfully to Ronald Reagan, SAG president,'' he once wrote.
Davis herself tried to make sure that politics never
jeopardized her career, and became a member of the Guild's
board of directors in August 1950, a position she would keep
for more than a decade. The Reagans' first real date, though,
is now the stuff of legend. It began with both of them saying
they needed to be home early and ended sometime after 3 a.m.
In 1952, they married.
Shortly thereafter, Reagan, who had a ranch at the beach,
landed his first position in public office: honorary mayor of
Malibu Lake. Within hours, California car dealer Holmes
Tuttle came calling, saying he and others were prepared to
back Reagan for the U.S. Senate. On that occasion, Reagan
turned him down.
Hollywood has remained a constant in Ronald Reagan's life
since the day he arrived here in 1937. Often it appears in
the most curious ways. Screenwriter and producer Douglas
Morrow once tried to find Reagan a role when no one else
seemed to be offering one. Years later, in 1979, Morrow, who
had connections in the aerospace industry, arranged for
Reagan to make a secret visit to the North American Defense
Command headquarters deep in the mountains of Colorado.
Seeing firsthand that the United States had no defenses
against nuclear strikes moved him, and stoked his fire for a
missile defense system.
When Washington conservatives were nervous about President
Reagan giving away the store to the Soviets at Reykjavik, and
sent Lyn Nofziger in to urge him to be cautious and remain
stalwart, Reagan responded: ``Don't worry. I still have the
scars on my back from fighting the communists in Hollywood.''
Hollywood's Guiding Lights
When he came back from Washington, Reagan was approached
about possibly returning to films for a special cameo, but
always politely declined the overtures.
Reagan's personal office now overlooks the 20th Century Fox
studios, and is in a building that has served as the site for
numerous films. A parade of dignitaries from Gorbachev to
Thatcher has visited him there, but Reagan always seemed to
especially relish the industry people who would appear at his
door.
On Tuesday, in a house high above the city, Nancy Reagan
will mark her husband's 90th birthday with him, without
fanfare. And perhaps, at the end of it, as the sun goes down
and the lights of the City of the Angels come up, Ronald
Reagan will have a fleeting glance of the town where an
American president found his destiny.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today, we celebrate the birthday of a
giant, Ronald Reagan. America is indebted to President Reagan for
reviving our national spirit and ensuring that we prevailed in that
``long twilight struggle'' against soviet totalitarianism. His
leadership not only revitalized our economy, but gave us a rebirth of
patriotism and national greatness.
My fellow Vietnam Prisoners of War share a special affection for
Ronald Reagan. Word of his steadfastness against aggression even
reached us in our cells thousands of miles away from freedom. When we
were released, he befriended and supported us. He understood and
appreciated the ``noble cause'' for which so many brave Americans made
the ultimate sacrifice.
Today, America enjoys unprecedented peace and prosperity largely due
to the policies of Ronald Reagan. So, to celebrate your 90th birthday,
we salute you President Reagan, a brave soldier in the battle for
freedom.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize
and celebrate the 90th birthday of our 40th President, Ronald Wilson
Reagan.
It is ironic that today this body is debating the merits of a tax
cut. Almost twenty years ago, President Reagan introduced and helped to
pass the largest tax cut in our Nation's history. Nearly two decades
later, we are still enjoying the economic benefits of that tax cut. Our
economy has had real growth every year since 1982, with the exception
of a tiny 1.2 percent dip in 1991.
Thanks to President Reagan's tax cut, we have experienced by far the
longest run of economic growth in American history.
President Reagan's main reason for supporting tax relief was not to
provide an economic stimulus, although that was an inevitable result.
His main reason was to promote freedom. Freedom from the heavy hand of
Government. Freedom to spend one's own hard earned money on whatever
one wanted.
[[Page S1058]]
Back in our country's colonial days, the colonists would tar and
feather tax collectors because they had to pay around one percent of
their wages. One percent! The famous Boston Tea Party was another way
that our forefathers protested a relatively small, by our modern
standards, tax increase.
But by 1980, our highest tax rate was an enormous 70 percent!
President Reagan understood that such a tax rate was indefensible. It
was unjust, oppressive and against everything for which our Nation
stands. He supported and got a 25 percent across the board tax cut. He
knew that the American people, not the American Government, knew best
how to spend their own money. Pretty revolutionary thinking.
President Reagan also took office at the height of Communist
expansion around the world.
The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. Southeast Asia was
still experiencing the dreadful repercussions of Pol Pot. Communist
insurgents were wreaking havoc all over Central America. The embryonic
Solidarity movement in Poland was being brutally repressed. The voice
of Democracy was being stifled around the globe. Our own armed forces
were in a shambles, both in terms of morale and military readiness.
But our President did not waver. He knew that as the most visible
leader of the Free World, he must stand up for freedom and democracy.
And despite facing strong opposition, at home and abroad, from those
who considered the dominance of the Soviet Union to be inevitable,
President Reagan stood up and helped change the course of history.
It was his military buildup that showed the Soviet Union that we
meant business. He knew that the Communists could not withstand an arms
race. He knew that eventually the voices of freedom would drown out the
nightmarish cries of Communist regimes.
He knew that our country's character, dedication, industriousness and
resolve would push the Soviet Empire into the abyss. All our Nation
needed was a leader. And because of his visionary leadership, the
Berlin Wall came crumbling down, democracy spread across Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union collapsed. Today millions of Europeans view
President Reagan as their liberator, and our economy has been further
helped along because of the ``peace dividend.''
President Reagan was known as the ``Great Communicator.'' Sometimes
this was used as s derisive term against him, as though the only reason
ordinary Americans liked and trusted him was because the former actor
had somehow pulled the wool over their eyes.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The American people saw an uncomplicated man, much like themselves,
who held the same traditional values as they did. They saw a man who
personified class. They saw a man who led by example, a man who never
took off his jacket in the Oval Office because he held The People's
sacred trust in such high esteem. Most important of all, they saw a man
who trusted them to run their own lives.
No wonder the American people love Ronald Reagan. No wonder we
elected him twice by overwhelming margins. He proved to everyone, at
home and abroad, that ``Government is not the solution--Government is
the problem.'' He gave us hope for the future. He gave us hope for our
country. He gave us hope in ourselves.
He told us that it was ``morning in America'' again and that our
great Nation is a ``shining city on the hill.''
Although President Reagan's voice has been silenced by Alzheimer's,
we can still hear the echoes of freedom ringing from his writings and
his presidency.
We can still pay homage to his deeds by recognizing the woman behind
the man, his wife, Nancy. Mrs. Reagan, we salute you.
Today we honor the life and leadership of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Without his shining example, our country, and our world, would be a
much darker place.
Happy Birthday Mr. President!
____________________