Most of all, Reagan believed in America

By John Lang
Scripps Howard News Service

Ron's favorite: This portrait of Reagan, made of 10,000 jelly beans, was a gift from the public. It rests at the Ronald Reagan Presidential library in Simi Valley, California.

He was the Republicans' favorite president of the 20th century - and he was the Democrats' favorite Republican of that time, too.

Even when many Americans didn't like what Ronald Reagan did and stood for, most could not help but like the man. In that curious circumstance is a legacy that all his successors may have difficulty living up to.

Ronald Reagan set one high standard for leadership: He made most Americans feel pretty good about that guy in the White House, and in doing that he made much of the country feel good about itself.

Historians and Reagan biographers do not agree on whether Reagan will be remembered in the distant future as a great president. His record of achievement, they do agree, is mixed.

In what he entered office most determined to do - in what most people seem to think he did do - he did not succeed. Not quite. He didn't shrink government. The day Reagan entered office there were 2.8 million federal civil servants. The day he left there were 3 million of them.

And yet, observes James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, "He cut down the scope of government. He shifted the scope from federal to state government. He expressed the conservative and populist philosophy that distrusted government."

Presidential scholars say that because Reagan, "the Great Communicator," expressed that philosophy so well, he did much to legitimize it. Reining in government remains the fundamental belief of the Republicans in control of Congress today.

If he failed to actually shrink the federal bureaucracy himself, it was because of what he did to end what he called "the evil empire" - the Soviet Union.

How that came about is a favorite story of one of his military advisers, the late Gen. Vernon Walters, who recounted a meeting that occurred shortly after Reagan first became president. There was a briefing by top security officials on the comparative strengths of the United States and the USSR.

"Do we have more guns?" Reagan wanted to know.

"No," he was told.

"More missiles?"

"No."

"More ships?"

"No."

"Well what do we have more of?" Reagan wondered.

And somebody tossed out, almost laughingly, "Money."

"That's it," said Reagan. "We'll beat them with money."

Reagan began a massive military buildup. He demanded a 600-ship Navy. He ordered a Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, popularly known as "Star Wars," a high-tech gamble on intercepting missiles in space. His own experts told him it couldn't work - but the Soviets couldn't be sure of that.

Moscow tried to keep up, and the USSR went broke.

When Reagan became president it was a bipolar world. When he left office it was on the way to becoming unipolar. The United States was soon to be the only surviving superpower.

Washington Post reporter and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon remembers covering the Reykjavik, Iceland, meeting between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: "The most stunning thing I ever covered. Here were two leaders way ahead of their own ministers and governments, both essentially nuclear abolitionists. Out of it came the arms reduction treaties."

Cannon blames Reagan for letting the budget get out of hand, for leaving office with a huge budget deficit that resulted from his accelerating the arms race while giving the people tax cuts. But he credits Reagan for something he thinks outweighs this domestic fault: Winning the Cold War.

"The Cold War had to be ended," says Cannon. "You couldn't go on forever with all those missiles pointed at each other and not have a calamity. While the danger is not completely removed now, we've certainly reduced the chances of destroying all life on the planet.

"That's his singular achievement."

What seems to set Reagan apart from most modern American leaders was his core beliefs. He hated communism. He believed in capitalism. He thought government should provide some basic services, like a strong defense, but not intrude on peoples' liberties. He was intent on breaking the welfare syndrome. And when he believed, he didn't waver.

"One thing Reagan will be remembered for," says longtime aide Lyn Nofziger, "will be that he restored the climate of optimism, the old American can-do spirit, that seemed sadly lacking ever since Watergate. He's still remembered so affectionately today by a good part of the American people because he made them feel good about themselves."

If that and destroying the Soviet empire were Reagan's shining legacies, there is a dark one, also.

The office of the independent counsel - arising from the Watergate scandal - grew in significance during the Reagan presidency. The office probed that administration's "Iran-Contra" dealings, the secret funneling of money to guerrilla forces opposing the radical leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Though Reagan's direct involvement was never proved, the investigation by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh lasted six years and costing more than $100 million.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, believes Walsh's wide-ranging Iran-Contra probe set the precedent for the Whitewater-to-sex investigations of President and Mrs. Clinton by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

"Reagan infuriated some Democrats in the same way Clinton infuriates Republicans," observes Sabato. "Neither group could understand these presidents' success and viewed their presidencies as illegitimate. The Democrats thought Reagan was an amiable dunce. The Republicans think Clinton is an immoral phony."

Sabato says it is too soon to know if a cycle of payback, or if they will call it even. He does, however, believe Reagan's influence will continue to be felt in a larger way.

"Unlike most presidents, he helped to fundamentally change American politics. He engineered a realignment in philosophy that has lasted right through to the present. It's a philosophy of less rather than more government, with individualism as its center, preferring state government to the federal government whenever government is necessary. It's a philosophy that gives every sign of continuing to dominate American political thought in the 21st century."

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