The lesson of this story: honestly accept responsibility for your past failures, and you’ll open the door to future success.
Remember that failure is temporary—unless you surrender. Perseverance is essential to turning failures into success. The dream only dies when you give up on it.
Many of us in the Reagan family concluded that Dad’s loss in 1976 was the end of the dream. We thought that by 1980, when Dad would be pushing seventy, he’d be too old to run. We underestimated him. But Dad never lost faith in the dream. Yes, for a while he became wistful about losing the chance to say “nyet” to the Soviets. But he never thought the dream was over—just deferred.
While flying back to California after the Kansas City convention, one of my father’s policy advisors, Marty Anderson, asked Dad to autograph his convention pass as a souvenir. Dad wrote, “We dreamed—we fought, and the dream is still with us. Ronald Reagan.” Those are hardly the words of a guy who thinks he’s seen his last rodeo. He knew that a bigger opportunity could come again in four years.
Summon all your creative energy, then renew your determination, your courage, and your strength. Above all, renew your faith and your hope. As Dad would say, you have every right to dream heroic dreams.
7
Don’t Worry about Who Gets the Credit
THE SOVIET UNION AND East Germany began building the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The Wall stood for nearly three decades, and during that time more than 200 people were killed attempting to escape from East Berlin to the West.
My father hated that wall from the moment he heard about it. He first spoke out publicly, demanding that the Wall come down, in a nationally televised debate with Robert F. Kennedy on May 15, 1967. He repeated that call the following year in a May 21, 1968, speech in Miami. Ten years later, during a speaking and fact-finding tour of Europe, Dad visited the Wall with a number of advisors, including Peter Hannaford and Richard V. Allen. Glaring angrily at the concrete barrier and guard towers beyond the broad “death strip” separating East and West, Dad said to his companions, “We have got to find a way to knock this thing down.”1
Immediately after his inauguration in 1981, my father went to work on his goal of dismantling the Berlin Wall—and the oppressive Soviet empire that erected it. He pursued what came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine—a rejection of Nixon-Ford-Carter-era détente, an end to the truce with Communism, and a concerted effort to provide material support to people fighting for freedom in places like Angola, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Poland, and yes, East Germany.
On January 17, 1983, my father signed National Security Decision Directive 75 (NSDD-75), which secretly but formally committed the United States of America to a strategy of confronting Communist aggression and destabilizing the Soviet economy. Norman A. Bailey, president of the Institute for Global Economic Growth and a former member of the National Security Council, called NSDD-75 “the strategic plan that won the Cold War.”2
My father repeatedly tried to warn Mikhail Gorbachev that the United States would break the Russian economy if the Soviets continued to pursue nuclear superiority. At their first summit in Geneva, in November 1985, Dad warned Gorbachev that the Soviets would be “driven into bankruptcy” by the arms race. Gorbachev wouldn’t listen. Instead, according to U.S. officials, Gorbachev spent 80 percent of his time in the arms control discussions trying to talk my father into shutting down the Strategic Defense Initiative.3
Martin Anderson, one of Dad’s top national security advisers, was directly involved in the Reykjavík summit in October 1986, and he reports that Dad again warned Gorbachev that America would bankrupt the Soviet economy. “I was with Reagan,” Anderson recalled, “and let me tell you, it was brutal. Behind closed doors, Reagan stiff-armed Gorbachev.”4 Still, Gorbachev wouldn’t listen.
In the early 2000s, I made several appearances with Mikhail Gorbachev at town hall meetings, and we discussed the events of the 1980s. During one meeting, I said to Mr. Gorbachev, “My father told you that America would bankrupt your economy. Just how bad did your economy get?”
“Oh, Michael,” he said, “it was so bad that I had to appoint a czar of pantyhose. Women in Russia could not buy pantyhose. And you cannot believe how angry Russian women become when they cannot get their pantyhose. So I appointed an official whose only job was to import pantyhose into the Soviet Union to calm the women down.”
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991 were no mere accidents of history. These events were conceived in the mind of Ronald Reagan and engineered from the Oval Office of the White House.
During his administration, my father was relentless in his attacks against the Berlin Wall. The world remembers his speech at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Yet he made frequent references to the Wall throughout his administration. In August 1986 alone, he gave three speeches demanding that the Wall be torn down. And in an interview with a West German newspaper, ten days before his Brandenburg Gate speech, he said “We want the Berlin Wall to come down.” In his February 1988 “Address to the Citizens of Western Europe,” he said, “To the Soviets today I say: I made my Berlin proposals almost nine months ago. The people of Berlin and all of Europe deserve an answer. . . . Make a start. Set a date, a specific date, when you will tear down the wall.”5
But the most significant effort my father made to dismantle the Berlin Wall came on May 29, 1988, when he met face-to-face with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on Gorbachev’s home turf, St. Catherine Hall in the Kremlin. Leaders of the two great superpowers met to discuss human rights. Gorbachev’s translator, Igor Korchilov, later recalled that Ronald Reagan “suggested to Gorbachev that the Berlin Wall be torn down. . . . Gorbachev said he could not agree with the president’s view.”6 My father wrote about that conversation in his 1990 autobiography, An American Life:
I said Americans were very encouraged by the changes occurring in the Soviet Union. . . . And for all the changes that Gorbachev had made, I said, wouldn’t it be a good idea to tear down the Berlin Wall? Nothing in the West symbolized the differences between it and the Soviet Union more than the Wall, I said; its removal would be seen as a gesture symbolizing that the Soviet Union wanted to join the broader community of nations.
Well, Gorbachev listened and seemed to take in my opinions; from his expression I knew he didn’t like some of the things I was saying, but he didn’t try to say anything harsh in rebuttal. Whether my words had any impact or not I don’t know. . . . In time, the Wall came tumbling down.7
My father spent years speaking out and working to bring down the Berlin Wall. Mikhail Gorbachev refused to dismantle the Wall when my father confronted him. When the Wall finally did come down in 1989, Gorbachev’s entire role in that historic event was to stay out of the way of the East German dissidents who tore it down. He never wanted the Wall to fall and he never wanted the Soviet Union to collapse. That was all Ronald Reagan’s idea.
In 1990, the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and given credit for the end of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War. Ronald Reagan, who planned and engineered it all from the beginning, received no credit, no award, no thanks.
And he never complained. My father wasn’t hungry for praise and applause. He just wanted to achieve the goal. One reason my father was willing to let Mikhail Gorbachev take all the credit was that he knew that Gorbachev needed to look like a hero and a leader to his own people, or he would be undermined in his own country. So Dad was willing to give Gorbachev the credit if it would enable Gorbachev to relax the restrictions on the people of East Germany.
Throughout his eight years as president, my father kept a brass plaque on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office that read: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” That was not a mere platitude. That was literally how he lived his life.
Another example of my f
ather’s humility was his approach to strategic arms control. When he came into office, he didn’t support the old SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) doctrines of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. Every SALT agreement permitted both sides to build more weapons in order to limit them. He wanted to replace SALT with START—the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a treaty that would actually reduce nuclear stockpiles on both sides of the equation.
In 1982, as my father prepared to meet with European leaders in Geneva, he needed to deliver a major policy speech outlining his arms reduction agenda. As his advisers argued over the right venue for such an important speech, Dad said, “I’m delivering the commencement address at Eureka College.” And his advisers said, “That’s fine, Mr. President. Now about your arms reduction speech—” Dad interrupted and said, “You don’t understand. I’m delivering the commencement address at Eureka College. That’s where I’ll announce my arms reduction agenda.”
So on May 9, 1982, on the campus of Eureka College, a private liberal arts college in Illinois with an enrollment of fewer than 800 students, my father delivered one of the most important policy speeches of his presidency. Soon afterward, he went to Europe and began the process of negotiating a real reduction in the nuclear arsenals on both sides of the Atlantic. American negotiators met with Soviet negotiators for START talks four times. The first three times, the Soviets walked away. The fourth time, the Soviet negotiators put a proposal on the table—and the proposal was amazingly similar to the proposal my father had outlined in his original speech at Eureka College.
Why did the Soviet negotiators offer a proposal that mirrored Dad’s original plan? I think they expected Dad to say, “That’s my plan! Those are my ideas!” Then the Soviets would say, “Well, if that’s your proposal, we reject it!” And they’d walk away again. They didn’t understand that Dad truly didn’t care who got the credit, as long as the job got done. So the Soviets ultimately signed the START agreement—and took credit for it.
And that was just fine with Dad. There was absolutely no limit to what he could accomplish—including nuclear arms reduction—because he truly didn’t mind who got the credit.
Fame Didn’t Change Him
My father was always aware of his place in history, yet he remained humble and self-effacing throughout his life. My sister Maureen told me the story of visiting Dad at the White House. They were in the family residence on the second floor, and Dad brought out an armload of books. “I’m giving these books away,” he said, “and I thought you might want to go through them and see if there are any you want.” While Maureen was going through the books, Dad brought out a briefcase and said, “Here’s something to take the books home in.”
“Is there some significance to this briefcase?”
“No, not really. I’m getting a new one, so you can have this one.”
But when Maureen looked more closely at the briefcase, she realized it was the same one Dad had used both as governor of California and throughout his first term as president. My father was a humble man, and he wouldn’t come out and say, “Here’s a piece of history.” Instead, he was passing it along as if it had no value at all, though he was aware that Maureen would recognize its worth. He was giving her a priceless piece of his legacy—yet in his humble way, he said it was just an old briefcase.
Dad never used his fame or his position to impress people, intimidate people, or get his way. Unlike many Hollywood stars, he would never try to get out of a speeding ticket by saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” He understood his place in history, yet he would never take advantage of it.
Visitors to Rancho del Cielo were often amazed at how simple and modest the ranch house is. The Spanish-style house is cozy and tastefully decorated but hardly a mansion. Yet my father didn’t hesitate to receive world leaders—including Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and Mikhail Gorbachev—at the ranch. The pictures on the walls were not photos of Dad with famous people. They were pictures of beautiful scenery around the ranch. My father was a humble man who didn’t feel any need to impress other leaders with ostentatious surroundings.
If you go to Illinois, you can travel the Ronald Reagan Trail—a network of highways connecting places that were important in the early life of my father—places like his birthplace at Tampico, his boyhood home in Dixon, the town of Monmouth where he lived from 1918 to 1919, Galesburg where he attended first grade, and Eureka where he went to college. All the houses where he was raised, and even the college he attended, were modest and unassuming. Ronald Reagan was a humble man who came from humble beginnings, and he never lost his genuine humility, even in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease.
In January 1996, seven years after my father left office, I visited him at his home in Bel Air. At the time, he was less than two years into his battle with Alzheimer’s. He had some trouble remembering details, but his wit and personality were still sharp. We talked about his political career, and I reminded him that it had been thirty years, almost to the day, since he announced he was running for governor of California.
“Back then,” I said, “you had no idea of all that lay ahead of you.”
He winked at me and said, “How did I do?”
I laughed. “Pretty good, Dad. You did all right.”
Typical Reagan humility. That’s the example Dad set for me, and the role model I have set for myself. I want to be a man like Ronald Reagan, a man of humility who maintains a sense of proportion and who can accomplish great things by not seeking glory and not taking himself too seriously.
Of all the leadership qualities my father possessed, perhaps the most important was his humility. It was one of the traits everyone noticed about him, whether observing him from afar or from up close. As his longtime speechwriter Peggy Noonan observed, Ronald Reagan “was probably the sweetest, most innocent man ever to serve in the Oval Office. . . . ‘No great men are good men,’ said Lord Acton, who was right, until Reagan.”8
Dad’s sense of humor was always humble and self-deprecating, never mean-spirited. For example, when he heard that Alan Cranston (who was a few years younger than Dad) was running in the Democratic primary, Dad’s response was, “Imagine running for president at his age!” Who was the butt of that joke? Senator Cranston? Of course not. Dad’s age-related joke was actually on himself.
A few days after he was shot in 1981, Vice President Bush visited him at the hospital, along with several White House aides. Entering the room, they found Dad’s hospital bed empty. They called for him—and heard a voice from the bathroom. “I’m in here, fellas,” he said. They found the leader of the free world on his hands and knees on the cold tile floor, mopping up a puddle of water under the sink. “I was giving myself a sponge bath,” he explained. “I guess I sort of made a mess of things.”
“You should let the nurse clean that up,” Mr. Bush said.
“No,” Dad said, “this is my mess. I’d hate for the nurse to have to clean it up.”
The virtue of humility isn’t respected very much in our society today, but my father possessed it, and it was the foundation of his leadership ability and his greatness on the world stage. To Dad, humility wasn’t an act or a performance. It’s just who he was. I can state that as a fact because I have seen the private Ronald Reagan and the public Ronald Reagan, and he’s one and the same man.
As president, Dad put the “serve” in public service. He didn’t run for president to inflate his ego or complete his résumé. He genuinely wanted to make the world a better place by eradicating Communism and spreading freedom around the world. He had many political opponents, but few, if any, personal enemies. I believe his genuine humility is the true source of his likability.
Today, there are a lot of people (and I’m chief among them) who are frustrated and angry that Ronald Reagan doesn’t get the credit he deserves for bringing down the “evil empire.” But I never once heard my father complain about not getting the credit. I really don’t think he cared about getting c
redit for his accomplishments. All he cared about was setting people free.
I have studied Dad’s life, character, and actions from very close range. Why? Because I wanted to be like him. He was the standard I measured myself against. And I can tell you that Ronald Reagan was never anyone else but Ronald Reagan. Hollywood fame didn’t change him. Political fame didn’t change him. Flying around the globe and meeting with world leaders didn’t change him. Awards and honors didn’t change him.
The humility of Ronald Reagan set him apart as a leader among leaders.
Not “I” but “We”
The flipside of humility is responsibility. Arrogant people hunger for praise and acclaim—and do everything in their power to escape blame. But humble people, who don’t care about getting the credit, are quick to accept full responsibility. Early in my father’s administration, the White House sent mixed signals regarding tax exemptions for religious schools. As a result, a lot of people on both sides of the issue became frustrated and angry. On January 19, 1982, Dad held a press conference in which a reporter asked if Dad himself had made the mistake—“or did your staff put something over on you?” Dad’s humble response was to take full responsibility: “I’m the originator of the whole thing.” When was the last time you heard that from a politician?
How did my father handle the cheers and adulation of the crowd? With humility. He once wrote, “A member of my staff who’s been reviewing some of the videotapes of the campaign asked me the other day if you can feel an audience’s adulation. I said that, yes, you could. (In fact, I bet I have a better idea of what it feels like to be a rock star than most twenty-year-olds.) So then he said, ‘Well, how do you handle it?’ I said, ‘I pray that I will be deserving.’”9
Lessons My Father Taught Me Page 13
