[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1351-1355]
[From the U.S. 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 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

[[Page 1352]]

     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 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.

[[Page 1353]]

     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.
       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

[[Page 1354]]

     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.
  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.

[[Page 1355]]

  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 a 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!

                          ____________________