Not that Reagan has not made mistakes in retirement. He seems not to have acclimated to being an ex-president nearly so well as he acclimated to the presidency. Like actors, ex-leaders should avoid stepping on their successors’ lines. Once the spotlight is turned to another, politicians are best served when their public does not see them, hear them or think about them for a year or two. Both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter have proven the value of emerging only after a fallow period. Reagan, perhaps, has been too much in evidence since returning to California.
And even to me, a loyalist, the Reagan administration was not without its disappointments, some of them major. After a convincing demonstration in year one of what a president can accomplish by narrowing focus and concentrating congressional firepower on carefully selected issues, the later Reagan years inexplicably reverted to that familiar White House strategy of firing ever-weakening salvos at ever-multiplying targets.
But the accomplishments of the Reagan years far outweigh some missteps in retirement or in office. To me, the top achievement was not eight years of peace, the longest sustained period of prosperity in our history, the leveling of the cost of living, the reduction of unemployment or the halving of interest rates. My vote goes to Reagan’s role in the remarkable revolution of freedom that marks a new era in the world.
In Berlin, June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” It was good politics good theater. But after so many years with the wall as a heavy and impenetrable symbol, did any of us really believe it would come down? Reagan, through his policies, lit the fuse of freedom in Hungary and Poland and Czechoslovakia and Nicaragua. Who knows: the fire of freedom may sweep through Cuba and even mother Russia herself.
In his first Inaugural Address, Reagan said, “Peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it–now or ever.” The 40th president was hardly settled at the White House before he made clear the basic principle that would guide his foreign and defense policies-peace through strength. It would make so clear its resolve to build a war machine superior to its adversaries’ that conflict would be suicidal. To those who said his devotion to defense would break us, Reagan maintained, “It will break the Soviets first.”
His moves to restrengthen our military might went beyond nuts, bolts and technology. He built up the competence and pride of the all-volunteer military, which had been deemed a disaster. He raised military pay levels by 50 percent. And during his first term, the number of those enlisting who were at least high-school graduates jumped from 68 percent to 93 percent. Experienced personnel who opted to re-enlist increased significantly at a time when a strong economy offered a record number of alternatives in the private sector. The military’s pride in itself and our pride in the military was the greatest since World War II.
Winning the race: On the foreign-policy front Reagan stood firm, even when Soviet negotiators walked out of arms talks in Geneva over deployment of INF missiles. When he refused to yield despite severe domestic pressure, the Soviets came back to the bargaining table and signed the first arms-control agreement in history designed not merely to limit the growth of nuclear arsenals but actually to reduce them. Reagan marched from the summit at Reykjavik without an agreement rather than accept a poor one. When he met Soviet and domestic resistance over his Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed “Star Wars” by his critics, Reagan said, “We” will continue to research SDI, to develop and test it, and as it becomes ready we will deploy it."
By 1986 evidence that the relentless pressure he applied was winning the race with the Soviets was seen in the bread lines of Moscow. The economic infrastructure of the Soviet Union, weighted down by the necessity to compete with the United States, was near collapse.
Perestroika was Reagan’s achievement. His policies forced Gorbachev to grasp at perestroika as a way of saving himself and the Soviet Union. And Reagan was able to do what previous presidents would have found difficult to do. Because he built his political base on opposition to “the evil empire” few questioned his accommodation with perestroika. Other politicians might have been accused of capitulation to communism, but not Reagan. If he said perestroika was in our interests, we believed him.
You don’t hear much about these things from Reagan himself. His modesty survived Hollywood, eight years as California governor and the presidency. It endures today. When I suggested to him recently that his role was instrumental in the events in Eastern Europe and Nicaragua, he answered: “I know some people were surprised by how things developed, but when you come to think of it, should we ever be surprised when people choose freedom?
