Best Books About Reagan
From my colleague, Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz:
ChicagoBoyz will be hosting a roundtable discussion to celebrate the centenary of the birth of President Reagan, the week of February 6th 2011.
In the meantime I would like to get the views of our contributors and readers on what are the best books about Reagan, the Reagan presidency, the Reagan era. Please leave comments with your favorites.
I note that President Obama was recently reading Lou Cannon’s book The Role of a Lifetime
, which is supposed to be very good.
I have read and enjoyed several books about Mr. Reagan, his presidency and his era. I will restrict myself to one favorite. If I had to pick one, I would give the palm to Peggy Noonan’s book What I Saw at the Revolution
. Used copies are available for a penny. This book captures the impact Mr. Reagan had on our national morale, which is not always captured in other writings about him. I say this despite still being mad at Ms. Noonan about her unforgivably uncritical response to Mr. Obama’s candidacy.
I am currently reading John O’Sullivan’s book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World
. I am about one third done with it and it is excellent.
As I said in the comments section at Chicago Boyz, I concur that Cannon’s The Role of A Lifetime and Noonan are the place to start.
There was a prolific outpouring of memoirs by former members of the Reagan administration in the years during and after his time as president. I think we can even divide the lit into books about (or by, at least nominally) Ronald Reagan and those about his administration.
Here are some of my recs….
On Ronald Reagan:
An American Life: The Autobiography
I like starting a subject by looking closely at what they had to say for themselves. Reagan’s diaries and private correspondence put the lie to the “amiable dunce” smear made by Clark Clifford (a decidedly nasty-edged, lawyer-courtier of Democratic presidents who ended his own long public career exposed as a corrupt dotard, thus proving George C. Marshall’s ability to size up a man’s character was inerrant).
On the Reagan Administration:
Inside The National Security Council by Constantine Menges
Unfortunately, I believe this one is out of print. Dr. “Constant Menace” details the intrigue at the NSC and State by officials who were less than committed to Reagan’s foreign policy initiatives, in particular the Contras and SDI. Menges, the late brilliant, often insufferable, old-style neoconservative gets a thumbs up from me for his capacity to infuriate State Department officials and his geostrategically incompetent and socially inept boss, NSC Adviser Col. Bud McFarlane.
Casey by Joseph Persico
Liberal biographer Joe Persico paints a complicated but at times hagiographic picture of his close friend, CIA spymaster and Reagan political adviser, William Casey. Strong emphasis on Casey’s crusade against the USSR, his unprecedented role for a CIA chief in foreign policy and the ideological struggle over the control over Reagan’s foreign policy. I have a great deal of admiration for Bill Casey and wish someone like him were running the IC today. We’d all be a lot better off.
The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed by David Stockman
The mendacious, arrogant and disloyal ex-Congressman David Stockman nevertheless manages to have an array of interesting, insightful, amusing, if unflattering, anecdotes and opinions about key domestic policy players in the early Reagan White House and in the Democratic leadership in Congress, whom Stockman called “the politburo of the welfare state”. While it was Stockman who failed Reagan rather than the reverse, this book is the most interesting memoir by far of the “dissenters” who left the administration under a cloud.
Turmoil & Triumph by George Schultz
This is not an interesting memoir. It is a ponderous, dull tome, which is surprising given Shultz’s critically acclaimed intellect and forceful persona. The reason for inclusion here is that Schultz obviously felt a duty to “set the record straight” about his battles over foreign policy with Cap Weinberger, Bill Casey and several NSC advisers and his memoir contains a wealth of minute detail about US foreign policy and national security. An invaluable resource.
What books on or about Ronald Reagan would you suggest?
January 20th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Peter Robinson’s How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life was a surprising treat. Noonan’s other title, When Character Was King is also good (and I’m with you on Noonan and The Obama). Buckley’s The Reagan I Knew is on of Buckley’s best later efforts. I truly enjoyed Reagan in his own hand and The Reagan Diaries—-both dispel the myth popularized by Clark Clifford of Reagan being an "amiable dunce" as both title reveal a man of considered depth and reflection—not to mention intellect. One surprising title that I read in the early-early 90’s was by the former Washington Post writer Don Oberdorfer called The Turn. I have been told that George Schultz was the "background" for this title. I must have loaned out this copy—just went to Amazon and purchased a "new" hardback for $1.50+shipping. Derek Leebaert’s Magic and Mayhem (reviewed here at zp) is also a complimentary review of Reagan’s foreign policy. Your reference to Casey is the first time I’ve heard of the book—I’ll add to my list, for I am a fan of Casey, too. Great topic!
January 20th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
I almost put Persico’s Casey biography down as my top pick. A terrific book. Casey comes off as determined to destroy the Soviet Union, a very worthy course. He and Reagan agreed: We win, they lose — not detente, not perpetual coexistence with the tyrants.The Schultz book, I found, can only be read in bits, almost as an encyclopedia of important events in the Reagan administration. His assessment of Reagan is balanced, and convincing.I have not read the Stockman, though I have it here.
January 20th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
I second (third?) the recommendation of the Cannon book. I don’t know if Cannon ever truly understood Reagan (who did?) but his front row seat as an outside observer of Reagan’s entire political career is unmatched. A book I recommend for its view of Reagan is Count Alexandre de Marenches’ The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism. Marenches covered many more topics than Reagan but his view of Reagan was positive even though Marenches was a French aristocrat, a true believing Gaullist, and the head of France’s external intelligence agency from 1970-1981. This is in stark contrast to his opinion of many Americans in government general and the CIA in particular.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
The Marenches book is excellent.I discussed it here: http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/2992.html
January 21st, 2011 at 2:10 am
I wondered where I had heard of that before – I need to read that