This is not a book for Washington insiders. Reagan adds nothing to our knowledge of the Iran-contra scandal. He makes no effort to square the reality of the huge budget deficit he left with his messianic fervor for tax cuts. Instead, he recounts his years in the Oval Office with the humility and wonderment of Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Reagan’s diary entries read like letters home from Boy Scout camp. “Best summit we’ve ever had with the Soviet Union . . .” “Got fitted for a new bulletproof raincoat.” Even the tamest of expletives are sanitized: “H–l” and “H–lbent,” he writes. The book’s style is conversational–what Reagan calls “people talk.” “An American Life " is a reassuring read for those who yearn for a trip down memory lane, the audio version, narrated by the Great Communicator himself, is even more nostalgic. The sound of Reagan’s voice re-creates the spell he cast over the country and gives new meaning to the phrase “easy listening.”
The forthrightness–some would call it simple-mindedness–that characterized Reagan’s presidency dominates the book as well. In an era of policy-by-poll, the ex-president comes through as a man of principle and rare conviction. His passion for a nuclear-free world, derided as unrealistic by arms experts, led him to pursue a dialogue with the Soviets despite his history as a red-baiting anticommunist. In the book, Reagan describes an extensive private correspondence with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and presents himself as a closet dove in his own hawkish administration.
Reagan took pride in being a Washington outsider. In his private jottings he would rail against “the striped-pants set.” But perhaps because he didn’t have the right intellectual credentials, Reagan let himself be intimidated by underlings. When an American pilot was shot down over Nicaragua carrying a planeload of military supplies, the commander in chief apparently accepted without question his aides’ explanation that they knew nothing about it. For Reagan, events were always controlled by some mysterious “they.” He recalled how “they” overbriefed him for his first ‘84 debate with Democratic candidate Walter Mondale. “Although I don’t blame them, in a way I was hurt by people trying to help me . . . they fill your head with all sorts of details, technicalities and statistics as if you were getting ready to take an exam …” Reagan says his faltering performance embarrassed him, but that he recouped in a second debate by tapping his skills as “an old performer.”
Those who hoped for a fuller explanation of Reagan’s role in the Iran-contra scandal will be the most disappointed by “An American Life.” Reagan reveals even less than what appeared in news accounts at the time, and remains adamant that he did not trade arms for hostages (although he concedes it looked that way). “I hardly knew him,” Reagan declares of Oliver North, explaining that when he called the Marine a “national hero,” he was referring only to North’s service in Vietnam. Despite appeals from conservatives, Reagan says he never considered pardoning North or national-security adviser John Poindexter.
Bizarre tale: The extent of Reagan’s religious convictions may surprise many. Reagan makes repeated references to the power of God and his belief that God “has a plan for everyone.” He credits the disappearance of a stomach ulcer while he was governor of California to the fact that two groups of people at opposite ends of the state were praying for him. He adds to the lore about White House ghosts with a bizarre tale about Rex, the family dog, circling the presidential study on his hind legs while staring at the ceiling. Reagan told the Secret Service he thought the dog might be responding to electronic signals sent out by the Soviets, but communications experts didn’t find anything. Reagan awkwardly segues from that story to “the myth about myself that has always bothered me most . . . that I am a bigot.” After Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall rated Reagan at “the bottom” of U.S. presidents in terms of racial justice, Reagan invited Marshall to the White House. “I literally told him my life story,” Reagan recalls. “That night, I think I made a friend.”
Reagan’s autobiography contains little more personal insight than can be found in a pile of yellowed press clippings. Former New York Times reporter Robert Lindsey helped compile the material from newspaper accounts, White House schedules and lots of Reagan speeches. If there’s more to the country’s 40th president, we’ll have to wait for biographer Edmund Morris to search it out. Or settle for the romanticized version–just as we did during his presidency.
