FACES AND PLACES: The best reason for hope (02/15/98)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

The best reason for hope

"Ronald Reagan did more than any other single man in the second half of the 20th century to shape our world, yet his presidency and his character remain little understood and often grossly misunderstood."

Thus begins "Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader" by Dinesh D'Souza.

Why is it that Ronald Reagan, who celebrated his 87th birthday February 6, is so mysterious a person and so poorly perceived?

One reason is Mr. Reagan's persona. He remains an enigma. Although he is friendly enough with practically everyone who meets him, he's not given to openness. His official biographer, Edmund Morris, confessed that from a purely human point of view, Mr. Reagan is the most incomprehensible figure he has ever encountered. Even Nancy Reagan found him impenetrable at times. "There's a wall around him," she wrote. "He lets me come closer than anyone else, but there are times when even I feel that barrier."

Another reason he is misunderstood is that he has enemies on both sides of the political spectrum. Liberals despise him because he consistently showed them to be on the wrong side of reality. Some conservatives dislike Mr. Reagan because he was a pragmatist and a compromiser who was more interested in getting the job done than in ideological purity.

What is it exactly that Mr. Reagan accomplished? When he took office the inflation rate and interest rates in the United States were in the double-digits, 12 and 21 percent, respectively. Economic growth and consumer confidence were low. When Mr. Reagan left office, the inflation rate was down around 3 percent and interest rates decreased by 50 percent.

His foreign policy achievements are even more astounding. When he took office, the Soviet Union was on a roll and it appeared that Nikita Khrushchev's boast that the Soviets would "bury America" was a distinct possibility. Much of the Third World seemed enamored of the Soviet model. Between 1974 and 1980, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, South Yemen, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Grenada and Nicaragua fell under Soviet influence, and Afghanistan was ready to fall. During President Reagan's tenure dictatorships disintegrated in Chili, Haiti and Panama, and nine more countries - Bolivia, Honduras, Argentina, Grenada, El Salvador, Uruguay, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Philippines moved toward democracy. The USSR agreed to destroy its SS-20 missiles and to pull its troops out of Afghanistan.

Despite all of his monumental accomplishments, including carrying all but one state in the 1984 presidential election, Time magazine named Mikhail Gorbachev their "Man of the Decade" in 1990.

Before, during and after Mr. Reagan's tenure in office, leftist pygmies have contravened his accomplishments. "Reagan seems to be a nostalgic figure whose time has passed," declared Richard Reeves in Esquire in 1979. "Ronald Reagan is an ignoramus," wrote John Osborne in the New Republic in 1990. "He is the most dangerous person ever to come this close to the presidency," warned the Nation on November 1, 1980. "He is a menace to the human race."

In his "evil empire" speech on March 8, 1983, President Reagan called the Cold War a "struggle between right and wrong, good and evil." Calling upon the evangelicals in the audience to pray for the salvation of all who live in totalitarian darkness, so that "they will discover the joy of knowing God," he reminded his listeners that the Soviet Union was "the focus of evil in the modern world."

"The evil is in the White House at the present time," responded House Speaker Tip O'Neill in 1984.

In 1987, Mr. Reagan stood on the border between east and west Berlin and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." House Speaker Jim Wright was shocked. "It just makes me have utter contempt for Reagan," he said. "He spoiled the chance for relations between our two countries." Columnist Anthony Lewis of The New York Times was outraged by such rhetoric calling it "simplistic," "sectarian," "terribly dangerous" and "primitive." The idea that "a diplomacy of abuse will make the Russians cry 'uncle' is fantasy," he wrote. The Soviet Union will not "disappear because we want it to," concluded Mr. Lewis, and for that reason "there is no escape from the hard work of relating to the Soviet Union." Other doves were even more emphatic, urging Mr. Reagan to abandon his "foolish" policy to roll back the Soviets. As late as 1989, economist Lester Thurow wrote that the Soviet Union's "economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States."

Staggered by President Reagan's undeniable success, the left has recently revised its view of Mr. Reagan as an economy-wrecking, war-mongering monster. They have adopted, instead, what Mr. D'Souza calls the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the past. Yes, they acknowledge, the Cold War is over and we do enjoy peace and prosperity, but it has little to do with Ronald Reagan; Mr. Reagan was little more than an amiable dunce with incredible luck.

According to Strobe Talbott, Mr. Clinton's Russia "expert," the Soviet system went "into meltdown because of inadequacies and defects at its core." The Soviet Union "never was" the threat that the right said it was. The doves in the great debate of the past 40 years were right all along. This view has been echoed by such luminaries as diplomat George Kennan, journalist Raymond Garthoff and others of that ilk.

Did Ronald Reagan accomplish all that he promised? Hardly. Although he cut taxes in 1981, and later brought about significant tax reform, there were sizable budget increases. Military spending alone went from $187 billion in 1980 to $286 billion in 1989. Nor was President Reagan successful in trimming the federal bureaucracy. He never did abolish the Department of Education and he signed legislation creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs. The Iran-Contra debacle during the waning years of his presidency was also a source of national discord.

In the end, however, the Reagan Revolution was a triumph. "As a national and world leader Reagan succeeded where countless self-styled men have failed because he had a vision for America, he was not afraid to act, and he believed in the good sense and decency of the American people," concludes Mr. D'Souza. "In a democratic society, the extraordinary success of this in many ways quite ordinary man gives us the best reason for hope."

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

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