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Lighten uP

The president from tinseltown

Megasthenes
IN times long past (c.650-c.550 BC), there lived seven wise men who have come to be known collectively as the seven sages and are identified generally as Thales, solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias, and Pittacus. Many of the sayings and aphorisms attributed to them have survived the ravages and passage of centuries, and contain such pearls of wisdom and a sense of universality and timelessness that they still apply. A frequently quoted one is the Latin phrase "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." Or in English, "Of the dead, nothing but good," surely a most unexceptionable norm or code of civility or civilised behaviour. If any of the sages also prescribed a corollary or cognate dictum that one must at all times be extravagant in praise of the departed, it has not come down to present times.
This came to mind recently when the 40th President of the United states, Ronald Reagan, passed on, full of years, honours, and high achievement. His passing was mourned by innumerable supporters and admirers, in the Us and elsewhere, and especially so by family, close friends, and former associates. It must have been painful for them to see the most telegenic of Us Presidents slowly descend and decline into physical and mental decrepitude, virtually a crepuscular existence, in the last years of a fully lived and eventful life. The best eulogy at the funeral was the one by Reagan's Vice President and successor in office, George Bush. There was a sombre eloquence to it, without hyperbole, and it afforded a glimpse of Reagan the man and the public figure. When the news of Reagan's death broke, an individual, assuredly an ardent admirer of the late President, in an impromptu comment to one of the news channels asserted, apropos of nothing in particular, that Reagan was a "highly intelligent" person. He did not elaborate whether his words were used in an absolute sense or perhaps relative to one of Reagan's successors in office, in which case not too many people would be disposed to dispute the soft impeachment.
There were many firsts and superlatives in Reagan's public life. He was the first divorced person to be elected President of the Us, the first professional actor, and the oldest person to be elected and to leave the White House, and the
longest-lived of all those who served as President. He was elected President in 1980 and completed his second term in 1989, thus breaking a strange 120 year old jinx; from 1840 to 1960, every President elected at 20 year intervals had died in office. Reagan survived an assassin's bullet and colon cancer to achieve this feat. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he showed rare courage and candour in personally disclosing his malady to the public. Illnesses of public leaders have always been a matter of sensitivity. Reagan's public disclosure did much to ease inhibitions and an unwarranted stigma that many even today tend to associate with mental illness.
Reagan was born in Illinois and
spent his formative years in the state that produced two of the greatest Americans to run for President, Abraham Lincoln and Adlai stevenson. His father, a shoe salesman of Irish-Catholic descent, was an unabashed liberal Democrat, free of bigotry. His mother was a Protestant, a pillar of probity and a spiritual anchor for the family and the local community. In high school as a summer lifeguard, Reagan saved 77 persons from drowning, none of whom had a word of thanks for him. Most resented the indignity of being dragged to the safety of the shore. This possibly underscored the notion in Reagan's mind that one did not like to be beholden to another and may have shaped his attitude to social and welfare spending in later years. As a senior, Reagan was elected President of the student body. In college too he became president of the student council. He was active in athletics and the drama club and won an award for a role in Edna st. Vincent Millay's anti-war play Aria da Capo. Academically though he did not excel.
Reagan's professional career began modestly enough as a radio
sports announcer from where he graduated to films. Of the 53 films in which he acted, only one, King's Row (1941 ) received critical acclaim. His best remembered film today is, ironically, Bed Time for Bonzo (1951), in which he shared star billing with a chimpanzee, which played Bonzo. After King's Row, but for the war, Reagan's career in films may well have taken off. He and Ann Sheridan, his costar in King's Row, were in fact the first choices to star in the highly acclaimed and perennially popular movie Casablanca (1942), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Eventually the lead roles went to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, whose performances and sheer screen
presence largely made of Casablanca the classic that it has become.
Reagan was called up for active duty after Pearl Harbor, but did not qualify for combat due to poor eyesight. Instead he served in the Army Air Corps' First Motion Picture Unit, narrating training films produced at the Hal Roach studios, Culver City, California. He also made a few morale-boosting war films, portraying, heroically enough, characters in combat.
In the 1950s, Reagan became nationally known as the host of a TV talk show sponsored by GEC. His politics also began to change, as the one-time liberal Democrat veered to the conservative fringe of the Republican Party. By 1962 he had formally switched party affiliations; the mid-1940s became his "hemophilic (sic) liberal" phase, "when he bled for every cause." Reagan's metamorphosis from liberal to conservative was genuine enough and he sincerely equated conservatism with patriotism and saw in the corporate view of free enterprise, the American dream. A recapitulation, howsoever hurried and cursory, of his political objec-
tives and values, policies and their consequences, and public comments by and about him should afford an insight into and a measure of sorts of Reagan the public figure.
Reagan's tenure as Governor of California was marked by phenomenal economic growth in the state. He was only moderately successful though in the implementation of his policies. Consistent with his taxreducing rhetoric, he sought to cut the budget of the University of California by 25 per cent and orchestrated the ouster of the University's President Clark Kerr. Within weeks of assuming office, he had been hanged in effigy on the Berkeley campus. Ironically the University's budget increased by 100 per cent
and state spending on higher education by 136 per cent during his tenure as Governor. By 1975, the state's budget had gone up by 122 per cent. Reagan did not condone handouts for the poor but was generous to big business. In 1967, the Associated Farmers, a group of millionaire growers, were allowed the use of prison labour to harvest strawberries and grapes. Farm workers were outraged. His generosity did have its progressive elements also. The 1971 Welfare Reform Act, for instance, increased benefits to the needy by 43 per cent.
Reagan's sweeping victories in 1980 and 1984 owed much to the support of fundamentalist groups like the former Moral Majority of Jerry Falwell. As President, Reagan stood for supply-side economic policies, increased military expenditure, reduction of non-defence spending, and lowering of taxes, measures that he believed would produce economic growth. The results were mixed; a recession in 1982, followed by 6 years of prosperity and growth, a strong economy, low inflation, energy costs and unemployment. The price for all this was high budget deficits and a
doubling of the national debt between 1981-86. The prosperity of the Reagan years would seem to have been built on unsustainable borrowing.
Reagan's unscripted public comments are revealing. A few instances:
1) Addressing a group of evangelists during the 1980 campaign, he announced the discovery of "new evidence" supporting the Biblical version of creation as opposed to the evolution of species. Pressed for details, he was vague and evasive. 2) On the same campaign, he insisted that trees caused more pollution than industry and that Alaska had more oil than saudi Arabia. The facts: saudi Arabia is at the top, by a considerable margin, of
the 10
nations with the highest proven oil reserves. The Us is in 9th place, just ahead of China and well behind Mexico. This was pointed out to him but, undeterred and unperturbed, he would repeat this later. 3) "If it's a bloodbath they want, let's get it over with." Comment on student demonstrations in California, 1970. 4) "I don't know, I've never played a governor." Response to question about his plans after being elected governor. 5) "I'm not smart enough to lie." Reply to question about his qualifications to be President, 1980. 6) "The entire graduated income tax structure was created by Karl Marx. It has no justification in getting government revenue." Comment during 1966 campaign for governor. 7). "Welfare recipients are a faceless mass waiting for a handout." -1966. 8) "I didn't go down there with any plan ... I went down to find out from them ... You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries." Comment after tour of Latin America, 1982. 9) "There is nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse," a favourite saying of Reagan, who was a keen horseman.
Generations to come are unlikely to place Reagan's homespun homilies on a par with the apothegms of the seven sages of old.
some samples of comments about Reagan: 1) "No, no, no! You've got it all wrong. Jimmy stewart for governor and Ronald Reagan for best friend." studio Head Jack Warner's reaction on hearing about Reagan's candidature for governor of California. 2) ". he has his feet in his mouth most of the time." -stanley Marcus, former Chairman, Neiman-Marcus. 1980. 3). He is
simplistic in a positive sense .The measurements he uses are black and white, even if the problems aren't." -- Charles Wick, California investor.
The people of the Us -- a brave, sturdy, warm-hearted and, at the end of the day, generous people -twice honoured Reagan with the highest office in their gift. Reagan in turn brought to bear on this high office, and to his politics in general, an unquenchable, if also simplistic, optimism and a celebration, as it were, of traditional American values. There is little in any facet of his persona though that is suggestive of high intelligence or a profound intellect. To be sure, these attributes are not the be-all and end-all for a leader of a people and it is for dispassionate scholars of the future to determine Reagan's rightful place in history. The verdict of contemporary scholars has not been too generous in this respect.
In 1991, 500 eminent American scholars were polled to rank and rate former Us Presidents in six distinct categories, namely Great, Near Great, Above Average, Average, Below Average, and Failure. Two, who held office briefly, were not included in the survey. Reagan was ranked 28th and placed in the Below Average category, behind Taylor and ahead of Tyler.
Reagan the man and the President may very well be but a blip in the continuum of history. In the chronicles of filmdom though, Casablanca will always be a landmark. And innumerable film-lovers -- a breed that transcends national boundaries and even barriers of culture and creed and surely includes many fervid admirers of Reagan -- will without exception be thankful that Bogart and not Reagan played the lead in that film. One must after all be grateful even for the small mercies.
***Reagan the man and the President may very well be but a blip in the continuum of history. in the chronicles of filmdom though, Casablanca will always be a landmark. And innumerable film-lovers -- a breed that transcends national boundaries and even barriers of culture and creed and surely includes many fervid admirers of Reagan -- will without exception be thankful that Bogart and not Reagan played the lead in that film. One must after all be grateful even for the small mercies.**