An American Life

by Ronald Reagan

  Here are additional excerpts from my diary that spring, beginning with our arrival in Germany prior to the economic summit.

  May 2

  The day started with a working breakfast with all our staff, then at 9:35 a.m. Nancy joined us. We helicoptered into Bonn and motored to Villa Harmerschmidt, home of President [Richard] von Weizsacker. Met by him and his wife plus a greeting part of our embassy people and German officials. It was a formal ceremony. [The German president’s functions are largely ceremonial.] He and I inspected the troops, etc. Then Nancy left us for her trip to Rome, an audience with the Pope and a schedule that will keep her away until May 4.

  The president and I, plus staffs, had a half hour meeting, then we were off to the Federal Chancellery to meet Chancellor Helmut Kohl. He and I had a 45 minute private meeting. I assured him I was not upset by the press furor over my scheduled wreath laying at Bitburg military cemetery. He said I had won the heart of Germany by standing firm on this. . . . Next visitor was President Mitterrand of France. He’s still pressing for a formal monetary conference to deal with exchange rates, etc. We’ve had our ministers and a task force discussing and studying financial matters for two years since the Williamsburg summit. Their report is due in June. I proposed that we wait for that report and then see what further is needed. He’s not satisfied with that and wants to tie a monetary meeting to any trade talks. I briefed him also on our Strategic Defense Initiative and sensed a reluctance on his part as to any participation in this. Then it was back to Schloss Gymnisch where I had a meeting with our solid ally Margaret Thatcher. This was a half hour, mainly spent in discussing the upcoming meeting. Back to the helicopter and off to Schloss Augustberg to meet Helmut, attend a reception, which was jammed. [Later] Back in a motorcade and off to Schloss Falkenbust for the Economic Summit dinner meeting. During the course of dinner I told them how successful Nancy’s anti-drug session with seventeen other first ladies had been and by the time I finished they picked up on it and we voted to move together on a program of cooperation in dealing with the drug problem.

  May 3

  The Summit really begins. Let me interject that in all our motoring the streets are lined with people clapping, waving, cheering . . . all, I’m sure, to let me know they don’t agree with the continuing sniping about the upcoming visit to Bitburg. The meeting was going pretty well with consensus on most of the points that would wind up in the final statement. Then we came to the matter of an early 86 round of trade talks. President Mitterrand expressed his own opposition to protectionism, but absolutely refused to agree to an early 86 round of trade talks to further reduce or eliminate protectionist measures that presently exist. We’re all guilty of some. His big hang up is the fact that France subsidizes its agriculture so they can compete in export trade at lower than world market prices. Couple that with his upcoming election in 86 and you have the story.

  We tried everything, wrote and rewrote the clause. The debate grew heated and then he took on the United States as being an interloper in European affairs, etc. The battle went on way past lunch hour. We finally settled for wording that bluntly said most of us felt there should be such a meeting and our ministers would meet in July to lay plans. Lunch came at about 2:30. Our dinner that night was heads of state only. Instead of business we got into story telling. [Canadian Prime Minister] Brian Mulroney started it and I got on with some and a good time was had by all.

  May 5

  Dawns the day the world has been hearing about for weeks. By 9 a.m. we were on our way to Konrad Adenauer grave site with the Kohls. Our wives put flowers on the grave. The press had only been given an hour’s notice on this. We didn’t want them claiming we were doing it to soften the criticism on Bitburg. From there we helicoptered to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. This was an emotional experience. We went through the small museum with the enlarged photos of the horrors there. Then we walked past the mounds planted with heather each being a mass grave for 5000 or more of the people, largely Jews but also many Christians, a number of Catholic priests and gypsies who had been slaughtered there or who were just starved to death. Here I made the speech I hoped would refute the phony charges that had been made. I declared we must not forget and we must pledge “never again.” Before the day was out there were reports that my talk had been effective. It was carried live on German TV and elsewhere in Europe.

  Next stop later in the afternoon was Bitburg. Here the people were jamming the streets—most friendly but some demonstrators. We went to the cemetery and met General [Matthew] Ridgway, 91 years old, last surviving top World War II leader in America and Gen. Steinhoff, a German general who had been shot down in flames and whose face had been rebuilt by an American army doctor at war’s end. Kohl and I and the generals walked through the tiny cemetery and then at a monument there the generals placed wreaths. The German “Taps” was played and then in a truly dramatic moment, the two generals clasped hands. There had been no leak to the press that the generals would be there. Then we motored to the air base where both German and American units are based. There were several thousand people, families of the military plus a number of citizens of Bitburg, the mayor, City Council et al. The German military band played our national anthem. Then the American band played theirs. My speech was sort of a sequel to the one at Belsen. It was enthusiastically received and our people thought it turned the issue around. I felt very good. I was told later the two generals sat holding each other’s hands. General Ridgway and his wife returned to Bonn with us on AF I. Back in Schloss Gymnisch we got done up for the white tie state dinner. . . . There was a small reception, then into dinner. After dinner, there was a half hour entertainment, chamber music. Well, this was the day—everyone—well, not everyone—but much of the press had predicted would be a disaster.

  One of my most memorable moments on that trip didn’t occur at the cemetery, but the following day, our last in Germany, when Nancy and I and Helmut Kohl and his wife flew by helicopter to a lovely forested area and then drove up a mountain road to an ancient German castle. Along the way, there were huge crowds of cheering people. When we reached the castle, about ten thousand teenagers were gathered outside. After I said a few words, these young people, gathered on a hillside above me, suddenly broke into music: Ten thousand voices sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” in perfect English. They had spent weeks studying and learning our national anthem for my visit. After they were finished, I just stood there, listening to the echo of their voices in my mind. If I had opened my mouth I wouldn’t have been able to say a word.

  • • •

  I have never regretted not canceling the trip to Bitburg. In the end, I believe my visit to the cemetery and the dramatic and unexpected gesture by two old soldiers from opposing sides of the battlefield helped strengthen our European alliance and heal once and for all many of the lingering wounds of the war.

  General Ridgway had volunteered to go with me to Bitburg after the furor had erupted over my plans to visit the cemetery. It was time, said this man who was among the greatest of our warriors, to make peace.

  55

  ONE OF THE unexpected pleasures of the presidency has nothing to do with economic problems or international crises. It is the opportunity to lend a hand now and then to other human beings.

  I was outraged one day in May 1982 when I read in the newspapers about a black family who lived near the University of Maryland. The husband and wife were both employed in a government printing office. They had been harassed and a cross had been burned on their lawn.

  I asked our staff to clear my late afternoon schedule. I called Nancy, and she was happy to join me in visiting these victims of intolerance. They were a nice couple with a four-year-old daughter and a grandma, a most gracious lady, living with them. Their home was comfortable and tastefully furnished. We enjoyed our visit and when it was time to leave they saw us to our car. Our motorcade had naturally been noticed, so there was quite a turnout of people from the neighborhood, and our farewells at curbside we
re warmly applauded by the neighbors. Needless to say, this fine family had no further harassment.

  Another time, I read a story in The New York Times about a twenty-nine-year-old father of eight who had been out of work for thirteen months during the depths of the recession. He was returning home after applying for a job when an elderly blind man broke his cane and fell to the tracks of the subway. The young man bravely jumped down onto the tracks and rescued him. We found out his telephone number and I called him. I asked if he had gotten the job he had applied for before the incident; he said he was just leaving his home to go back for a second interview. I called the company; at first, the switchboard operator wouldn’t believe it was me and refused to let me speak to the manager. But I finally got through. I’m not sure my call had anything to do with it, but the young man got the job.

  It was also always a thrill to witness the kindness and generosity of the American people from the vantage point of the Oval Office. You could measure it by the growth of volunteer programs around the country and see it swing into action whenever there was a major flood, a hurricane, or other emergency: Americans would rush in to help other Americans. Countless times, I observed this phenomenon on a smaller scale, too. There was the couple in Connecticut who had adopted twelve children, all as deformed and handicapped babies—the kind of children who unfortunately are frequently victims of infanticide. I called and spoke to the couple and then to all of the children, and I could feel the love and joy in that household radiating over the telephone wires like a burst of sunshine. If there were people who needed proof that God had a purpose for each of us, I thought, let them meet that family.

  Once I was asked by a group of children whether I liked being president, and I told them I enjoyed the job very much. There were moments, I said, of great grief. As I’ve said, the hardest part of the job was having to send young men and women into situations of danger and then having to tell the families of some why they weren’t coming back. But, I told them, there were also many moments of great joy, and I enjoyed being president very much.

  Part of it, I said, was being able to have my hand on the throttle after so many years of preaching about my views on the problems of government; now I could try to do something about them.

  I even enjoyed the give and take of battling Congress—including Tip O’Neill. But it was more than that: Maybe the most fun of all, I told the children, was being able to pick up a phone, after we’d received a letter from someone who had a problem, and telling someone on the staff, “Fix this.” That was really a great joy, which will live with me.

  I also enjoyed the ceremonial aspects that go with being president. Even after eight years, the experience of walking into a crowded House of Representatives to deliver a speech sent a chill down my spine. Also, nothing thrilled me more than looking up at a wind-blown American flag while listening to a choir sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” my favorite song. On overseas trips, I was always moved when I heard our national anthem played at far corners of the world. And I’ll never forget standing once in the Vatican after a meeting with Pope John Paul II and hearing a group of Armenian priests singing “America the Beautiful” in as lovely a rendition as I had ever heard it. Nancy and I were both in tears.

  There were many, many small moments that made my job fun, such as visiting the modest hideaway of Prime Minister Yasu Nakasone in the woods outside Tokyo and sitting on the floor of this typical Japanese home while we had an authentic Japanese lunch; or landing in a helicopter on the lawn of Windsor Castle for a fairytale visit with Queen Elizabeth and the royal family. The highlight of our stay there came when the queen and I went horseback riding together and Nancy and Prince Philip took a horse-drawn carriage ride. I must admit, the queen is quite an accomplished horsewoman. We will always remember our visit to Windsor Castle because of the queen’s and Prince Philip’s warmth and welcoming hospitality—they could not have been more gracious. When the queen and Prince Philip later visited us at Rancho del Cielo, it was in February, during the middle of our rainy season, and Santa Barbara was being pummeled by a terrible storm. We waited at the ranch for them while they struggled seven miles up a switchback road. At three places the road was cut by streams and their limousines couldn’t get through; our people met them with four-wheel-drive cars. They made it up the mountain, but when they got to our home, it was so foggy no one could see more than a few feet. I tried to explain how beautiful the place really was and apologized for the weather, but the queen said, “Yes, if it was just dreary, but this is an adventure.” Despite the gloomy weather, I’m sure Nancy and I were as proud of our ranch as they were of Windsor Castle. Another special moment with the queen and Prince Philip came when Nancy and I were their guests aboard the royal yacht Britannia for our thirty-first wedding anniversary. They made it wonderful with an anniversary cake and an engraved silver box commemorating the occasion. There were toasts and I said, “I know I promised Nancy a lot when we were married, but how can I ever top this?” Attending the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer was an especially memorable moment for Nancy; when she came home, she told me, “Nobody can give a royal wedding like the British.” We were both very fond of Prince Charles; he’s thoughtful and intelligent and has a keen sense of humor that always made our visits with him enjoyable.

  Nancy and I traveled to many countries when I was president, and among our most enjoyable trips were the short ones we made across our nation’s northern border. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada was a valued ally and we became good friends with him and his lovely wife, Mila. And, of course, our get-togethers with Margaret Thatcher and her husband, Dennis, were always special occasions for us as well.

  I always enjoyed welcoming foreign leaders to our country, and will always remember one visitor in particular: President Alessan-dro Pertini of Italy, eighty-four years old, bright, warm, gentlemanly, an Italian patriot who was in love with America. On his way into the White House, he stopped at the marine guard who was holding our flag, reached out, and kissed it.

  I never ceased to enjoy reviewing our men and women in uniform and hope I started a new tradition for presidents. As commander in chief, I discovered it was customary for our uniformed men and women to salute whenever they saw me. When I’d walk down the steps of a helicopter, for example, there was always a marine waiting there to salute me. I was told presidents weren’t supposed to return salutes, so I didn’t, but this made me feel a little uncomfortable. Normally, a person offering a salute waits until it is returned, then brings down his hand. Sometimes, I realized, the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman giving me a salute wasn’t sure when he was supposed to lower his hand.

  Initially, I nodded and smiled and said hello and thought maybe that would bring down the hand, but usually it didn’t. Finally, one night when Nancy and I were attending a concert at the Marine Corps headquarters, I told the commandant of marines, “I know it’s customary for the president to receive these salutes, but I was once an officer and realize that you’re not supposed to salute when you’re in civilian clothes. I think there ought to be a regulation that the president could return a salute inasmuch as he is commander in chief and civilian clothes are his uniform.”

  “Well, if you did return a salute,” the general said, “I don’t think anyone would say anything to you about it.”

  The next time I got a salute, I saluted back. A big grin came over the marine’s face, and down came his hand. From then on, I always returned salutes. When George Bush followed me into the White House, I encouraged him to keep up the tradition.

  First ladies, I discovered, are one of the taxpayers’ biggest bargains; they’re unpaid, work full schedules, and are always on the move. From combating drugs to restoring the beauty of the White House to helping me represent our country overseas, Nancy was among the hardest-working of all our first ladies. That this was known and appreciated by many Americans was evident from the thousands of letters we received praising Nancy. But I never underst
ood or got used to the sniping at her, which at times got so bad that she was in tears when I came upstairs at the end of the day.

  Here I was the president, and I was unable to stop my own wife from being hurt. It was hard for me to accept that she had to suffer simply because she was married to me. My attitude—and sometimes I’d express it—was: Dammit, you want to pick on someone, pick on me, not her. I’m in this job, not her. Even when Nancy tried to straighten out things with the facts, it often didn’t do any good.

  During the eight years we lived in the White House, it became a real home because Nancy worked to make it that way. I never stopped missing California; I’ve often said that a Californian (even one transplanted from the Midwest like me) who has to live someplace else lives in a perpetual state of homesickness. California, I like to say, isn’t a place, it’s a way of life. I once told Margaret Thatcher that her people should have crossed the other ocean to get to this continent; that way the capital of the United States would have been in California. But Nancy made the White House into a wonderful home for us, furnishing it with our things from home, and I felt very comfortable there—it was home. After the drab second-floor Central Hall was restored, we seldom closed the doors opening out from our living room, and the hall became an extension of it. As I sat looking across to the other side of the building, I never failed to remark to myself how magnificent it was.