[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 92 (Wednesday, July 7, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1306-E1308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        BOOK REVIEW ON PRESIDENT REAGAN BY JUDGE JOHN C. HOLMES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. J. D. HAYWORTH

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 7, 2004

  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the official end of the 
period of national mourning for former President Ronald Reagan. During 
this month there have been many tributes to this great President, all 
of which were deserving.
  Recently, I was given a copy of a book review by the well-respected 
Administrative Law Judge John C. Holmes, who is now retired. In August 
1998, Judge Holmes reviewed Dinesh D'Souza's book, Ronald Reagan: How 
an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader. It was an excellent 
review that summed up how so many of us view Ronald Reagan and his 
life. I would like to submit the review for the Record and I commend it 
to my colleagues.

                      [From the Free Press, 1997]

   Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader

                          (By Dinesh D'Souza)

       Dinesh D'Souza, who served briefly as a low-level advisor 
     to President Reagan in 1987-88, is an open admirer of 
     Reagan's accomplishments. Yet not even Reagan's harshest 
     critics are more revealing of his character flaws and human 
     weaknesses. Rather than expressing scorn and derision, 
     however, the author is in turn bemused, delighted, curious, 
     and intrigued in candidly reporting the former president's 
     character and personality idiosyncrasies. After careful 
     examination, he concludes that Reagan's very real limitations 
     in fact assisted as much as deterred this seemingly ordinary 
     man in becoming an extraordinary leader. Beneath his apparent 
     simplicity was a complex and sometimes contradictory person.
       For example, Reagan's sunny personality and near continuous 
     optimism masked a psychological curtain that could descend on 
     even his most intimate friends and family, keeping them at a 
     distance. There was also the contradiction that, while 
     constantly extolling the virtue of the family and its values, 
     Reagan exhibited a disjointed personal one, having been 
     divorced from his first wife, Jane Wyman, and distant from 
     his son, daughter, and stepdaughter. Reagan's acknowledged 
     short attention span masked a tenacious adherence to those 
     principles and policies that concerned him most. His good-
     natured jokes and story-telling, sometimes criticized as 
     irreverent and irrelevant, served to disarm and win over 
     adversaries from Tip O'Neill to Mikhail Gorbachev. His famous 
     line in the presidential debate with Walter Mondale that he 
     ``would not use Mondale's youth and inexperience against 
     him'' caused an involuntary grin and chuckle from his 
     surprised opponent, totally diffusing the increasingly 
     serious campaign issue of Reagan's age, and propelling Reagan 
     into one of the largest presidential victories ever. He loved 
     pomp and cavorted with the wealthy, but had a singular 
     capacity to connect with, and was beloved by, the common man.
       The author dispels or modifies some public misconceptions. 
     While Reagan himself self-deprecatingly joked about his nap 
     times, he worked sometimes grueling hours, particularly for a 
     man of his age, exhibiting strong discipline in doing 
     homework on those issues he needed to know. His discipline in 
     keeping physically fit probably saved his life early in his 
     presidency when he was the recipient of a would-be assassin's 
     bullet that lodged less than an inch from his heart. His 
     character was revealed during this frightening time when 
     despite the seriousness of the situation he could 
     extemporaneously joke to his wife Nancy: ``Honey, I forgot to 
     duck!'' and to his treating physicians: ``I hope you're all 
     good Republicans.'' Such good humor in the face of adversity 
     won him a reservoir of good will by an appreciative public.


                     taking on the ``evil empire''

       Reagan was a naive, rosy optimist, thinking that, if he 
     could only show Gorbachev how ordinary Americans lived, 
     Gorbachev would recognize the differences between the two 
     systems and make big changes for the better. Reagan was a 
     foolhardy, almost comical belligerent, standing at the Berlin 
     Wall and challenging Gorbachev to ``tear down this wall!'' He 
     was an embarrassment, a blind, unsophisticated patriot who 
     had the gall, bad manners, and political incorrectness to 
     call the free world's adversary an ``Evil Empire.'' He was an 
     actor who knew nothing of foreign policy, a genial dummy who 
     straddled between reckless action and somnolent inattention. 
     Or so he was portrayed and so many believed.
       But D'Souza recognizes Reagan's historic accomplishment in 
     fostering the dissolution of the Communist empire, which 
     emanated at least in substantial part from the man's own 
     willful, steadfast purpose. This dissolution was not 
     foreordained, as has become the fashionable view. The author 
     demonstrates the transparency of Reagan's critics, quoting

[[Page E1307]]

     extensively from their pronouncements on the growth, 
     stability, and power of the Soviet economy and the folly of 
     attempting directly to challenge Russia itself. Liberal 
     historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. observed in 1982 that 
     ``those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is 
     on the verge of economic and social collapse are wishful 
     thinkers.'' John Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard economist and 
     guru during the Kennedy-Johnson years, pronounced that 
     ``the Russian system succeeds, because, in contrast with 
     the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its 
     manpower.'' Such assessment was concurred in by even 
     ``neutral'' economists such as Paul Samuelson and Lester 
     Thurow, who as late as 1989 marveled at the Russian growth 
     process.
       As for confronting Russian expansion, Sovietologist Stephen 
     Cohen of Princeton University thought that Reagan was 
     pathologically wrongheaded in apparently abandoning the 
     comforting previous policies of containment and detente for 
     the objective of ``destroying the Soviet Union as a world 
     power and possibly even its Communist system.'' Strobe 
     Talbot, then a senior correspondent at Time magazine and 
     later deputy secretary of state in the Clinton 
     administration, indignantly scoffed at Reagan's unrealistic 
     and misguided attempts to return to the '50s goal of rolling 
     back Soviet domination in Europe.
       Though criticized as too ideological, Reagan appointed 
     skilled pragmatists to implement his aggressive foreign 
     policy. They included the maligned but effective Bill Casey 
     at the CIA, Cap Weinberger at Defense, and George Schultz at 
     State. Reagan's overarching plan was relatively simple: he 
     would outspend the Russians on defense, thereby showing the 
     vulnerability of the Russian economic system which Reagan, 
     almost alone, was convinced would not keep pace. This 
     culminated in the proposed future deployment of defense 
     missiles and lasers dubbed ``Star Wars,'' a concept ridiculed 
     by many, and not fully understood even by Reagan, but greatly 
     feared by the Russian leadership. D'Souza presents the still-
     minority viewpoint, which I believe history will eventually 
     confirm, that the elevation by the Russian leadership of 
     Gorbachev was largely stimulated as an antidote for the very 
     presence of Reagan, who by then had emerged as a popular and 
     effective world leader who articulately advocated challenge 
     of Russian aspirations for world dominance. Reagan took an 
     immediate liking to Gorbachev and instinctively felt they 
     could do business. His subsequent perseverance in challenging 
     Gorbachev to reform the system, combined with U.S. military 
     buildup, precipitated the eventual dismembering of the 
     formerly impenetrable Russian political hegemony and military 
     might.
       For this accomplishment alone Reagan should be recognized 
     as the single most important person in the second half of 
     this century in pointing our world in the direction of 
     freedom and democracy. However, to the surprise and even 
     anguish of liberal opponents, and the consternation of some 
     conservative friends, his challenge was not limited to the 
     communist totalitarian system, but to dictators everywhere, 
     whether in the Philippines, South America, or Africa. The 
     resulting extensive conversion from socialist and 
     totalitarian states to democracies and free economies was 
     truly remarkable, never before seen in the history of the 
     world.


                        taking on big government

       As Reagan ran against the political wisdom and apparent 
     majority public opinion in advocating defeat of, rather than 
     detente with, communism, so too he opposed the belief that a 
     powerful central government was essential to ensure freedom, 
     justice, and the general welfare. Reagan presented the then-
     heretical view that central government was the problem, not 
     the solution. While Reagan accepted much of Roosevelt's New 
     Deal as a necessary reaction to the economic emergency 
     following the Great Depression, he felt the Great Society 
     agenda fostered by President Johnson took the country too far 
     along the path toward a suffocating central government that 
     would eventually stifle individual initiative and freedom. 
     His conversion from Democrat to Republican resulted.
       Reagan carried his message forward in speech after speech, 
     initially while traveling the country for General Electric. 
     Although the 1964 Republican Convention produced the 
     spectacularly losing campaign of Barry Goldwater, Reagan's 
     nominating speech--which has been since dubbed merely ``The 
     Speech''--launched him into the national scene as the future 
     messenger and leader of the conservative cause. It also 
     brought him to the attention of king-makers in California, 
     who lured him into a successful run against the incumbent, 
     the firmly entrenched Governor Pat Brown, who, like every 
     candidate Reagan has run against, underestimated his talents, 
     personality, and character.
       As Governor, Reagan preached austerity, but in his first 
     term did little in practice to put California's economic 
     house in order. His main contribution, perhaps, was in 
     standing up to the most radical of the free speakers, thereby 
     keeping the universities open and restoring a modicum of 
     stability during those turbulent times. The author labels 
     Reagan's governorship as only moderately successful. Reagan, 
     however, gained a stage that eventually catapulted him into 
     the presidency.
       While running for and entering the presidency, his economic 
     message remained the same: limited government. On the one 
     hand, as his critics are quick to point out, Reagan never 
     directly achieved his economic goals, as the high cost of 
     defense build-up and his insistence on a tax cut made a 
     balanced budget impossible. Moreover, this imbalance was 
     exacerbated by the Democratic-controlled Congress, whose 
     ``compromise'' meant more spending on cherished domestic 
     programs rather than cuts that would have helped pay for the 
     defense build-up. On the other hand, his intense lobbying 
     efforts on his first budget, while not reaching all the 
     results he envisioned, provided the mechanism for a future 
     more limited domestic spending program, and provided more 
     funds for the private sector through tax cuts. Through a 
     numbing recession in 1982, with critics contending his 
     ``voodoo'' supply-side economics were a proven failure, 
     Reagan elected to ``stay the course,'' retreating to his 
     California ranch for resuscitation and refusing the siren 
     song to ``do something.'' He was assisted by a supportive 
     Federal Reserve, which tightened credit to reduce the 
     fever of double digit inflation prevalent during the 
     preceding Carter administration. With recover came 
     increasing public and business confidence. A growing 
     economy meant more dollars to pay for the defense build-
     up.
       The author points to the ``outrageous'' act of firing the 
     air traffic controllers as a further plank in economic 
     recovery. Though their union, the Professional Air Traffic 
     Controllers (PATCO), was one of the few to support Reagan's 
     presidential bid, Reagan had no compunction in firing them 
     and replacing them by non-union workers. Considering them 
     ``untouchables,'' no previous president had so directly taken 
     on unions and government workers. To Reagan, the moral basis 
     was simple: government workers were servants of the people 
     and not their masters. The law supported his viewpoint. 
     Condemned, ridiculed, and pressured even by allies, and 
     temporarily losing popular support, particularly from new-
     found ``Joe Six-Pack'' converts to the Republican party, 
     Reagan stuck to his guns. This action, and his subsequent 
     refusal to compromise, so shocked and silenced union leaders 
     and government workers that corporations and government 
     agencies were afforded for years to come the opportunity to 
     downsize and ``reorganize.'' The seemingly forgotten 
     principal that jobs were a privilege and not a right was at 
     least partially restored and the economy further stimulated.
       Reagan's goals were not all achieved while in office. 
     Nevertheless, he left an agenda that is still in many 
     respects being followed today. Free international trade 
     through agreements such as NAFTA, and the outline for fiscal 
     savings as drawn up in the ``Contract for America,'' were 
     Reagan initiatives. Even the line-item veto, scorned and 
     laughed at as a campaign throw-away, and impossible to enact, 
     has become law, ironically co-opted by President Clinton and 
     touted as his own accomplishment. While temporarily 
     contributing to a huge unbalanced budget and an unfavorable 
     foreign trade deficit, the successful war against communism 
     eventually allowed a resulting ``peace dividend,'' a 
     prosperous economy, and a curtailed federal government. A 
     balanced budget would be achieved 10 years after he left 
     office.
       Reagan again knew instinctively what the most sophisticated 
     economists were oblivious to. Reduction of tax rates during 
     times when government has become too large and costly can 
     actually increase total revenues by freeing the private 
     sector from stifling governmental costs and regulations, 
     thereby enabling sales and profits (as well as taxes paid) to 
     rise. What was to become known worldwide as ``privatization'' 
     resulted from these policies. Where previous Republican 
     administrations had merely attempted to cut around the edges 
     to make governments a little more efficient and accountable, 
     Reagan attacked it head on, by word and deed freeing the 
     private sector to accomplish its goals with minimal 
     intervention.


                         Taking on ``malaise''

       A third area that Reagan sought to change flowed naturally 
     from and was dependent upon success in his attack on 
     communism and big government: restoration of the prestige and 
     respect of the presidency, and the confidence, optimism, and 
     patriotism of the American people. Following the ``Peace and 
     Prosperity'' and ``Return to Normalcy'' of the 1950s under 
     Eisenhower, we had experienced the assassinations of 
     President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy; 
     the quagmire of Vietnam, causing President Johnson's decision 
     not to run; Nixon's seemingly moderately successful 
     presidency brought down by Watergate; and the failed Carter 
     presidency, ending in American hostages being ignominiously 
     held in Iran, communism seemingly on the march in 
     international expansion, and Carter himself describing a 
     ``malaise'' in the American psyche. Onto the stage strode the 
     unlikely candidate the conservatives lusted for, but 
     mainstream Republicans merely tolerated, and Democrats 
     welcomed as ``easy pickings''--seemingly too old, too 
     ideological, and too inexperienced to be elected or to 
     accomplish the job.
       The reigns of government had barely been grasped when a 
     sickening feeling of deja vu returned as an attempt was made 
     on Reagan's life. Reagan's humorous reaction and relatively 
     quick recovery boded well, allowing him to initiate his 
     foreign and domestic programs. The sputtering of the economy 
     in late 1981, leading to recession, however, dispelled this 
     good will and left the nation in a

[[Page E1308]]

     sullen mood. As recovery finally came and Reagan's ``stay the 
     course'' was more or less vindicated, his personality and 
     talents as a ``Great Communicator'' began to sharpen and 
     shape the American and world landscape. He entreated the 
     people of the United States, the country he felt destined to 
     be ``a shining city on the hill,'' to support and further his 
     program and policies. He restored a sometimes teary-eyed 
     patriotism, encouraging Americans to take pride in and 
     celebrate our country, its meaning, and its history. Using 
     his powers as a former actor and the sincerity of his own 
     belief in the goodness of America, whose ``morning had just 
     begun,'' he sought to enlist the people to assist the world 
     along a better path to a brighter future. He returned a pride 
     in military service, severely wounded since the Vietnam war. 
     His own dedication to duty and pride of office restored 
     dignity and world leadership to the presidency.
       History may record Reagan as having been extraordinarily 
     lucky to have accomplished his successes at such an advanced 
     age, barely before senility and the eventual ravages of 
     Alzheimer's disease fully took over. D'Souza does not think 
     so. He credits--too much, some will argue--Reagan's ability 
     to cut through the thicket of unimportant matters and take 
     the correct action at nearly every important juncture. Far 
     from being a mere bystander, Reagan led on matters that 
     mattered, even when his decisions were unpopular.
       D'Souza notes a nearly mystical aura that President Reagan 
     himself privately acknowledged as governing some of his 
     actions. While many presidents donned the mantra of 
     churchgoing for public consumption, and Reagan himself 
     supported, mainly as a sop to the religious right, a 
     constitutional amendment to allow public school prayer, his 
     own religious beliefs were more complex. Not an active 
     churchgoer before or during his presidency, he apparently 
     firmly believed in an intervening and active higher authority 
     from whom he privately sought solace and guidance. When asked 
     what person he most admired, Reagan invariably answered, 
     ``The man from Galilee.'' Though public ridicule was made of 
     his wife Nancy's seeking guidance from astrologers, without 
     serious objection and perhaps active support from the 
     President, Reagan's truer belief would have been the 
     personally delivered opinion of Mother Theresa that he had 
     been put on this earth for a divine purpose.
       This book will not find favor with liberal economists, with 
     those Jeanne Kirkpatrick labeled ``Blame America Firsters,'' 
     or with apologists for the former Soviet communist system who 
     then had advocated accommodation and appeasement, but many of 
     whom now find its demise historically inevitable and Reagan 
     irrelevant. One of D'Souza's obvious purposes in the book is 
     to attack this attempted instant historical revisionism. In 
     so doing, he can fairly be accused of straying too often from 
     a ``pure'' chronicle of Reagan to a strident attack on his 
     critics. No doubt in anticipated rebuttal, D'Souza points to 
     a ``stacked deck'' committee chaired by Arthur Schlesinger 
     Jr. and commissioned by the editors of the New York Times in 
     December 1996 to render a collective verdict on how history 
     will rank the U.S. presidents. Not surprisingly these 
     ``history experts,'' which included Doris Kearns Goodwin, 
     James MacGregor Burns, ex-Governor Mario Cuomo, and ex-
     Senator Paul Simon, liberals all, ranked Reagan in the lower 
     half, below George Bush and in the undistinguished company of 
     Jimmy Carter, Chester Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison. In 
     contrast, D'Souza believes Reagan should be ranked with the 
     Roosevelts, Wilson, Lincoln, and Washington.
       Interestingly, however, the ideologically conservative 
     ``true believers'' who allege that Reagan was merely a 
     popular messenger for an irresistible movement will not be 
     overjoyed with the book. D'Souza paints Reagan as a unique 
     individual, the likes of which are unlikely to return. Though 
     Reagan articulated the principals of the ascending 
     conservative movement, he was flexible rather than rigid, and 
     his sunny personality lent itself to compromise on everything 
     except his hardcore principals. This enabled Reagan to 
     overcome popular reluctance to accept his conservative 
     agenda.
       D'Souza describes an apparently simple, but actually a 
     flawed, complex, and contradictory man who accomplished his 
     aims by concentrating on a few specifics that were 
     fundamental to his beliefs. To this reviewer, who was 
     initially extremely skeptical of Reagan's governing 
     capability, let alone his electability to the presidency, but 
     who has come to the happy realization that there really was 
     something in the stars that brought forth this unlikely man 
     to lead our country at such an important time in history, 
     Ronald Reagan gets it exactly right.

                          ____________________