Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday

Do you remember the last scene in Chariots of Fire, the masterful British film about personal growth, conflicting values, and achieving goals? In it, at the end of Harold Abrahams’ funeral, one of his old colleagues from the 1922 Olympic Games addresses another veteran of athletic feats; while they are leaving the cathedral to the sound of the hymn “Jerusalem” he says: “When you desperately want something, you achieve it. Isn’t that right, old boy?”*

Ronald Reagan would have turned one hundred this past Sunday. Soon after he left the presidency in 1989, his chief speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, published a memorial of his time in the White House, titled ”What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era.” The book begins with Noonan imagining Ronald Reagan’s state funeral. “Someday, when we’re older, he will die and there will be a large funeral with a flag draped over the casket, the coffin will be followed by an unmounted horse with the boots of the stirrups hanging upside down (…) It would not be a sad day. One could almost imagine it as a happy time. He would die with his boots on, without knowing … bitterness or defeat.”*

Reagan was truly a revolutionary, because a revolutionary is someone who wants to overthrow the status quo and he left it in tatters. He always supported free enterprise and the primacy of the individual over the state. He had the courage to uphold political freedom above any established convention. And faced with the hundreds of thousands of young people who filled the streets of Western Europe crying out, consciously or unconsciously, for submission to the Soviet Union, that septuagenarian Californian stood firm against the dominant leftists on that side of the Atlantic, who were asking him to cede to the Soviet Union and not to deploy missiles in Europe. And it wasn’t easy to do, because when most of the West was convinced of the moral and military superiority of the Soviets, the simplest, one might even say the most logical, option was to surrender.

But Reagan found two major allies to help stand up to that challenge: John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher. The trio proved to be a truly invincible armada. They had the courage to arm themselves to preserve peace. Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative: weapons to cause economic loss in the USSR. Many raised their voices against him and called him a warmonger, including not a few bishops, but John Paul II was silent. It has already been said how General Vernon A. Walters visited the Pope once every three months to show him satellite photos of secret Soviet missile silos and troop movements… The Pope endorsed him, Reagan won the Cold War, and many who accused him of trying to bring about a nuclear holocaust now live comfortably among us, enjoying the free world given to them by the man they despised, the merit of whom they never recognized.

Like Barack Obama today, Reagan had to deal with revolutions that swept away friendly dictators. The most notable, of course, was that of Filipino Ferdinand Marcos in February 1986. As it often has, the U.S. Republican Party showed a greater respect for freedom than its Democratic rivals, and it has grown from the Reagan Administration to the nuclear opposition surrounding Corazon Aquino. So, when Marcos fell, the new power knew that America was not an enemy; it remains to be seen what we can say about this in a post-Mubarak Egypt.

What was behind the Strategic Defense Initiative? As his friend William F. Buckley explained, in his speech for the ex-president’s 85th birthday, the deciding factor was the nature of the White House’s occupant. The Soviets occasionally committed tactical errors, but never miscalculations of apocalyptic proportions. And the Soviet Union’s strategists knew that, in that environment, the mellifluous partners of successive American administrations and those who would like to be allied with them were very far from the White House in those critical years. So, if by chance the Soviets were tempted to respond to the Strategic Defense Initiative with a suicide attack, it would achieve just that: suicide. Reagan was determined to demonstrate that the main front against Soviet imperialism would come from an assessment of the advantages Americans had over the Russians in terms of living conditions. If done with sincerity, this would lead to the conclusion that it was worth it to defend what they had with every means available.

Reagan had a unique way of calling attention to his foreign policy with frequent diplomatic blunders: Calling the USSR the “Evil Empire” or proclaiming, “Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down this wall!” did not help him to make friends on the other side of the Iron Curtain. But he clearly stood on a pedestal as the leader of the free world. However, when he met with Soviets, he always kept up appearances and could be seen laughing and joking casually with them. It got to the point that the contrast between his firm politics and his casual behavior during those encounters recalled the Russian joke about the man who, after realizing that his talking parrot had disappeared, ran to the KGB to tell them that he did not share the bird’s political opinions.

He had a strategic vision. He explained to us how the majority of our problems were created or exacerbated by the government, and that they were not problems that could be resolved by the government. “Government is like a baby,” he said. “An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” Only the government can cause inflation, maintain monopolies or punish the private sector. But there are also political leaders who stimulate feelings of citizenship. In terms of culture, we can talk about the Spain of Cervantes, but in general terms we have to talk about the Spain of Felipe II. Far from reigning 42 years, as that king of Spain did, Reagan ruled 8. But, like Felipe II four centuries before, Reagan marked an era of the world: placing values on civil liberties, standing against tyranny and for democratic governments.

And so, as in Harold Abrahams’ funeral in Chariots of Fire, the day he left the White House, Ronald Reagan was able to take credit for a joint effort with the American people to preserve America as “the shining city upon a hill.” That day, at his moment of departure, he said: “My friends: We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, goodbye…” Farewell, but remain present at the 100-year anniversary of your birth.