Chose to read the Diary of President Ronald Wilson Reagan. I am amazed by the man, humbled to read his personal thoughts, and learn the way he thought about many things and many people, but more than anything I was gratified to find that he was exactly the type of man that I thought he was all the years I watched him in action and hoped and prayed he was the real deal.
Reading any ones diary is often times embarrassing or uncomfortable but reading the diary of a President of the United States of America is an amazing thing, it brings you into their life and their thoughts. It makes you feel as though you are in the room with him. Ronald Wilson Reagan was a mans man, he rode horses chopped firewood and when he pointed his finger and said Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall he damn well meant it.
I find myself realizing that this man was so much like my grandfather, a man that I loved so much, and he was true to everything he believed in. He hated the fact that after the failed assassination attempt by John Hinkley, he had to wear what he called the Iron Shirt around. He got down right ornery with his secret service detail about not being able to go to church because they felt it was too dangerous, as you read on he won out and decided to go to church anyway. He lived his life the way he felt he should uncompromising on the issues he felt he had an absolute knowledge of righteousness on, and a congenial compromising side that made you feel you won him over to your side when in fact he had been leaning your way all along.
One of the things that I loved to read in his own words is that his love for his wife and his marriage was real it was no put up job. They had a special marriage, one like I have. There are several references in his personal diary about Nancy ( he called her Mommy) being out of town and how it effected everything from his sleep to his appetite, I am the same way with my wife, its how I know our marriage is a godly based marriage.
President Reagan was truly the real deal. His formal education was in finance from Eureka College, and as I read his diary entries about the double digit inflation, and the huge budget deficits and his plan to bring it all under control you realize that he liked to surround himself with the smartest guys around not so he would have ammunition to say he was right but because he liked to double check that he was right and he was most of the time.
President Reagan took office at a time when President Carter and the Democrats had taken four years to run up the amount of deficit spending to levels that were hitting the stratosphere, all the while President Carter had slash and burned the military spending down to next to nothing. The US Military was at the smallest levels since pre World War two, and he knew that we needed to get our Military might as strong as possible, we needed to break the Soviet Communist Regime by the threat of awesome power that was NON Nuclear in nature (As a footnote I entered the United States Army under President Reagan's first term in 1984).This was an imperative, as President Reagan believed from the start that he had a chance to break through the cold war. This is evidenced by his early apprehension to sell surplus grain to the Soviet Union, something we had been doing for years before he took office. He was afraid that if we continued to sell surplus grain to the Soviets, there would be no reason for the Soviets to change or even to give pause to the idea of change.
President Reagan in his 1984 State of the Union address called for scientists to find weapons that would make Nuclear weapons obsolete, he was honest that it may take 20 years or more but that it was not just important, but a moral imperative that we make these terrible weapons obsolete, for the safety of our children's children's children. He wanted to ensure a safer place in this world for my kids, and he did. My daughter Penelope and my son Cole will never know the duck and cover drills I did in elementary school in the time of the cold war, when the real possibility of a Nuclear War loomed ever present, when the United States lived in a time where the Soviet Union actually had plans to take over the world for communism. We owe a debt of gratitude that President Reagan demanded a stronger military as well as the MX missile program at a time of double digit inflation and the 14-20% interest rates, and half a trillion dollar budget deficit, and the Democrats screaming into every available microphone that President Reagan was wasting taxpayer money on weapons while running the deficit up even higher.
Back in the Eighties the President was required to make projections to congress on where the economy would be in five years. President Reagan hated this as he felt is it was a monumental waste of time compiling all the data that was basically a stab in the dark as we had no way to make those predictions accurately then. This ridiculous ruling was repealed by executive order by President George H.W. Bush in 1989.
President Reagan took the worry to heart, he worried that his plan to fight inflation, lower interest rates and spur on the economy, would be torpedoed by his plan to build up the military, but he also knew that if he was right and he built up the military, the defense contractors would begin hiring again, the increase in the US Military would scare the Russians (it did that) and the new MX missile would force the Soviet's to the table to talk about real limitations on Nuclear build up. He also knew his tax cuts and economic package would work.
What I find out as amazing is that he was right on all counts, and when he and General Secratary of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev met in 1985 the US's views of the strength of the Soviet Economy and Military were extremely overly optimistic, and President Reagan saw the opportunity, and he went for it. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, gave way to Perestroika and Glasnost, followed by the fall of communism and the fact that the Soviets didn't even have the capacity to feed their people, this made Salt I and Salt II possible and are responsible for the relationship we have now with the Russian Federation note the absence of the term USSR. I can't wait to read and re-read this book of his diary.
Although I am only half way through the book I find myself looking throughout the Republican Party for a 72 year old candidate for president with a John Wayne swagger, a true and unwavering love for his wife, that shows the ability and capacity for working out differences and overlooking idiosyncrasies. I want a President faithful, loyal, and true to the Office of the President of the United States of America. I need glasses because I am not finding that candidate. I will continue to look around. The American People missed that opportunity in John McCain in 2008 and I fear we will regret it for years to come.
Lastly in closing, I pledge allegence to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation UNDER GOD indivisable with liberty and justice for all.
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