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The Roots of Ronald Reagan
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13113 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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11 / 1987 |
5,071 Words |
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Lee Edwards
Lee Edwards is senior editor for the Current Issues section
of THE WORLD & I. His latest book is The Power of Ideas: The
Heritage Foundation at Twenty-five. |
EARLY REAGAN
Anne Edwards
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987
572 pp., $21.95
Despite having been in the public eye as an actor and politician for almost fifty years, Ronald Reagan is still not clearly understood by many Americans. Much of the misunderstanding is due to the partisan rhetoric of political opponents who have promoted the false image of Reagan as a second-rate cowboy actor too dumb and too conservative to be governor of California or president of the United States. This myth persists in more liberal parts of the United States and in much of Western Europe, which does not know, for example, that just before Pearl Harbor, Reagan was a rising Hollywood star, or that as six-time president of the Screen Actors Guild, he guided his union through some of the most complex and controversial labor-management bargaining in the post-World War II years.
I well remember my first meeting with Reagan in 1965, when he was contemplating running for the Republican nomination for governor of California. For two days, I accompanied the unannounced candidate around Los Angeles as he addressed a variety of civic and political meetings. Tall, tanned, and blue-eyed, Reagan held every audience in the palm of his hand. There was a palpable star presence about him that made the eyes of his listeners, especially the women, shine. I was impressed by his charisma, but still wanted to know what lay beneath that very charming exterior.
Toward the end of the second day, we drove up to his hilltop home in
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