On Friday, February 6, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, turned 87. One way in which this was commemmorated was the renaming of Washington National Airport as Ronald Reagan Washington National.
Reagan tends to bring out emotions in people. You either love him or you hate him. It's hard to have ambivalent feelings about him. Why? It's not the same way with Jimmy Carter, or George Bush, and I hope it's not the same way with Gerald Ford. Some think that it's the same with Nixon, but the condemnation against him is generally agreed upon, for what he did in Watergate, and his behavior at the end of his Presidency has been seen as irrational, to speak kindly.
Let me stop this equivocation. Reagan kicks ass. That's all that can be said. Now, before people start jumping on me, saying that Reagan caused the budget deficit and all this other stuff, let me say one thing: he won the war. Not Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford with the Helsinki accords, although those may have contributed. Not George Bush being around at the very end. It was all Dutch, as people called him. When he said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," in Berlin, he meant it. When he went toe-to-toe with Yuri Andropov (or what was left of him) in 1982, the Soviets knew that they had trouble. Reagan was a deviation from the Americans that the Soviets had become used to in Nixon, Ford, Carter, etc. In fact, Reagan was the most confrontational President since Kennedy. The Soviet paranoia over Project RYAN proves this. However, Reagan wasn't just confrontational. Although he did consider the Soviets to be evil, he also feared nuclear war. That was the motivation behind SDI, he wanted to make sure that the USA wouldn't be nuked. He also saw MAD as dangerous and immoral. This may be where his famous and controversial statement came from that nuclear war could be winnable. However, in any case, the Soviets weren't about to be able to have 30 years of detente with Reagan around.
Reagan's economic policies have often been criticized as much as anything. However, macroeconomics should show what's up. Reagan built up a budget deficit by cutting taxes and encouraging investment. People all thought this to be unconscienable, especially during the Bush years, because of all the debt. However, an important economic principle, based on Keynes (thanks, Prof. Diba), says that a deficit is not such a bad thing if the investment can cover the debt. And guess what, folks? It worked! Was the end of the Cold War worth the amount of money spent? I should say so. And the amount of investment done led, in my opinion, to the economic boom of the late 1990s. Reagan's deficit began with massive tax cuts. Why? To stimulate investment. It makes sense - if you have money to spend that's not spent on taxes, you'll either spend it or save it. It's not likely, given confidence in banking institutions, that people with extra money are going to stuff it in mattresses. So what happens? If they spend it, it's more money in the pockets of producers, who use it to pay salaries, invest in capital, or save it themselves. If those given more money by the government save it, then it's available for business and personal borrowing. This personal and business borrowing can be used for consumption or investment. In any case, the Reagan tax cuts put more money into the hands of consumers, allowing for more investment. Now, in the case of the defense buildup, the US military of 1975 would have gotten its keister handed to itself by the military of 1985, or 86, or 87, etc. We could not have won the Persian Gulf War without the Reagan buildup. And quite frankly, since the downsizing of the military, we can't fight it now. I'm not going to shortchange Carter: he did things that did help the military, like the MX missile, the B1, etc. But these projects were carried to fruition by Reagan. Also, it's acknowledged that our military buildup, especially in SDI and stealth, bankrupted the Soviets.
OK, time to deal with Iran-Contra. This is one of the few subjects that Reaganites don't like to touch on. However, in dealing with the Contras, Reagan felt he was doing the right thing by fighting the Communists. The Sandinistas, by the way, were being supported by other Communist nations (for example, see Man Without a Face by Markus Wolf, where he even provides pictures of himself with Sandinista rulers). The problem was that the Boland Amendment outlawed funding the Contras. His major mistake, though, was not coming out and stating what he had done. This, combined with the obtuseness of the CIA in dealing with Congress (as described by Dewey Clarridge) killed his reputation with the Senate and the House. Given Reagan's popularity at the time (he had defeated Mondale in the 1984 elections by massive amounts) if he had come out and simply stated what had happened, the American people probably (in my opinion) would have backed him. However, there is one other thought that comes to mind.
President Reagan is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. No one knows exactly when it set in, but I happen to believe that it took hold during his second term. Alzheimer's doesn't just happen. I know this from personal experience - my grandfather went senile at the end of his life. Whether it was from Alzheimer's or not, I don't know, but it wasn't immediate. I also know of others who had Alzheimer's as well, and it is a gradual disease. The truth is that given that we now know Reagan had Alzheimer's, even possibly during his Presidency, he could have been telling the truth when he said that he had no knowledge of the Iran-Contra dealings. No one will know for sure - Nancy Reagan has said that there was no sign of Alzheimer's during the Presidency. However, one never knows. And that brings me to one final thought. Has anyone considered all those jokes made about Reagan's forgetfulness? I even used to laugh at them myself. But now, I think that President Reagan was really suffering, and struggling through his problem. That, more than anything else, is why I respect Ronald Reagan.
We miss you, Ronnie.