Ronald Reagan: An American Life

Welcome to the first episode of “Build to Last,” a podcast where I explore the lives of history’s most remarkable leaders, thinkers, and trailblazers — uncovering the values, pivotal choices, and convictions that shaped them.

In this episode, we’ll step into the life of Ronald Reagan, reading from his autobiography An American Life and follow his journey from small-town Illinois to Hollywood, and ultimately, to the White House.

If you’ve ever wondered how extraordinary people got their start — and how you can too — this is your front-row seat to be inspired by a life and a legacy that were built to last.

Transcript

Ronald Reagan's Early Beginnings

Speaker 1 0:08

If I had gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward, I suppose I would never have left Illinois. I've often wondered at how lives are shaped by what seemed like small and inconsequential events. For me, the first of these turns occurred in the summer of 1932, in the abyss of the depression. They were cheerless, desperate days. I had a new college diploma that summer and a lot of dreams. Keeping it secret from my father. I hitchhiked to Chicago after the swimming season with visions of getting a job as a radio announcer. But all I got was rejection. No one wanted an inexperienced kid, especially during the Depression, and so I hitchhiked back to Dixon in a storm, my dreams all but smothered by this introduction to reality. But when I got home, my dad told me he had some good news. The Montgomery Ward Company had just decided to open a store in Dixon and was looking for someone to manage the sporting goods department. Suddenly I had a new dream, not one as seductive as my real dream, but one that seemed to be more grounded in reality. And for a time, late that summer, nothing in the world was as important to me as managing the sporting goods department of the new Montgomery Ward store. I told my father I'd run the best sporting goods department Montgomery Ward had ever seen, and when I applied for the job with the manager of the store, I told him the same thing.

Speaker 1 2:00

That was an excerpt from An American Life, an autobiography of Ronald Reagan. Hello and welcome to Iconic. My name is Apoorva and I will be your host. Iconic is a show where I will dive into the life stories of some of the most fascinating and successful individuals in history through their autobiographies and biographies. Individuals in history through their autobiographies and biographies. In each episode, I'll take you inside the life stories of these remarkable people, focusing on how they got their start in life, what made them so unique and special and how they found success. For me, this project has been very special, and reading the lives of these individuals has been nothing short of inspiring, and I really hope it is for you too. I think for so many of us, we grow up without role models or with examples of what success should look like and, most importantly, what it takes to get there. What it takes to get there. Reading these books filled just that gap for me, and I found it to be a great source of inspiration, motivation and, most importantly, guidance. So my hope is for you to benefit from that as well and find insights that you can take away for your own life. So I really hope that you enjoyed the show. As I said before, today I'm reading from the autobiography of one of the most charismatic and consequential presidents in American history, ronald Reagan. His autobiography is called An American Life. It's a very personal account of his life, right from his childhood into his time in radio broadcasting, in Hollywood and eventually in politics. He had such a prolific life, but what stuck with me the most was his ever optimistic and hopeful outlook in life, something I think we can all learn from.

Speaker 1 4:08

He was born on February 6th 1911 in a small town in Northern Illinois called Tampico. He was one of two boys born to his parents, jack and Nellie. His older brother's name was Neil. His father, jack, had come to America from Ireland during Ireland's potato famine, and his mom, nellie, was of Scots English ancestry. The family affectionately called him Dutch, a name that he actually used until he went to Hollywood.

Speaker 1 4:42

Reagan's parents were an important influence on him and he learned a lot from them. His mom was a very optimistic woman and Reagan embodied the same radiant positivity. Nellie would often say troubles carry with them seeds of something better, and Reagan fully embraced this glass half-full mentality and he carried it with himself his entire life. She was also very religious and taught Reagan to see the hand of God in all things, a belief that he said sustained him throughout his life.

Speaker 1 5:21

His father, jack, was ambitious and resilient. He was a shoe salesman and he dreamt of owning his own shoe store and he dreamt of building a better life for himself and his family. So from his father he learned to have dreams and belief that he could make them come true, to have dreams and belief that he could make them come true. Jack really wanted to do whatever that he could to provide for the family, and so what that meant was that when they were little, the family moved very often as Jack looked for better work opportunities. I think constantly being the new kid wasn't easy. I know if I was in issues it probably wouldn't be easy for me but it taught Reagan empathy and adaptability. He wrote in his book growing up in a small town is a great foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You know people as individuals and not as blocks or members, and you really develop empathy. Jack's dream was to own a shoe store. And that dream came true in Dixon, illinois, where the owner of a store Jack had worked at, offered to make him partner and part owner. So the family moved to Dixon and Reagan was about nine years old at this time and this is where he truly felt at home.

Speaker 1 6:47

He developed a love for nature. He's swimming in the Rock River, he's skating on his frozen waters in the winter and he's hiking. And this zest for life was so evident in this part of the book where he describes growing up in Dixon. So I just loved reading this section because it so beautifully captures an endearing quality that defined him, which is his larger than life personality and boundless zest for living. So I think his love for life and his desire to embrace every moment to the fullest is so uplifting and inspiring to read about. And I think this love and passion for life seemed to accompany him throughout his journey and it really became a hallmark of his personality.

Growing Up in Dixon, Illinois

Speaker 1 7:37

So growing up in Dixon, Reagan was obsessed with sports. He loved football, baseball, you name it. But he struggled and he would always end up at the bottom piles, and this was really hard for his self-confidence. But, lucky for him, he found out the reason why he was so bad was because he was effectively blind and needed glasses. And once he figured that out, everything changed. He of course hated how the glasses looked. His friends called him four eyes, but he could not care less. He writes I could see, and that outweighed the effects of whatever ridicule I had to endure. So, with his newfound vision, reagan threw himself wholeheartedly into sports and other activities. He was always first in line to participate, eager to make up for lost time. Almost he was front and center of everything, and I love this example. He says when someone in town decided that Dixon ought to have a boys band, I wanted to be a part of it. I didn't play a musical instrument, but I wound up out in the front of the band as a drum major and felt very special about it.

Speaker 1 8:55

Another great example is from his high school. He desperately wanted to make the football team and he'd missed getting into it his first year because he was too short and didn't weigh enough. So he says by my junior year I had shot up to five feet ten and a half inches and weighed 160 pounds. But although I made the varsity by mid-season I was still warming the bench. Then one Saturday morning the coach, who had decided he was unhappy with the playing of one of our first string guards, convened our regular pregame meeting and, reading off the starting team, he said right guard Reagan. And you know, once I got in I never let the other guy get his position back. The first string job was mine. For the rest of the season and during my senior year, when I had grown even bigger, I was a starter from the beginning. I just love this taking life by its horns. Quality of Reagan. I feel like so many of us live life passively, taking the opportunities around us for granted. But Reagan didn't do that. He seized every chance, every opportunity, and never waited for life to hand him anything on a silver platter. Instead, he went out, he pursued opportunities and made them work, and I think that's such a great lesson for all of us I know it is for me.

Speaker 1 10:27

In the 1920s, fewer than 7% of the high school graduates in America went to college, but Reagan was determined to be among them. Jack encouraged his dream of going to college, but he told him he would have to fund it himself, while his older brother, neil, didn't think it could be done and got a job at the local cement plant. Reagan's dream of attending college was firmly planted and he wasn't going to be discouraged easily. He was particularly drawn to Eureka College, where one of his high school football heroes had gone, and he went to campus and presented himself to the new president and the football coach, ralph McKenzie, and tried to impress them with his credentials as a football player and as someone who could win some trophies for Eureka's swim team ballplayer and as someone who could win some trophies for Eureka's swim team. And you guessed it, he was convincing enough for the school to give him a scholarship. I don't think I could pull that off, but he did.

Speaker 1 11:33

Reagan writes about his college experience. He says I entered Eureka when I was 17. I stood almost six feet tall and weighed almost 175 pounds. I still wore those thick eyeglasses I despised. I had a trunk filled with almost everything I owned and a head full of dreams. In later life I visited some of the most famous universities in the world, but if I had to do it over again, I'd go back to Eureka or another small college like it in a second.

Speaker 1 12:09

At big universities relatively few people get involved in extracurricular activities. I think too many young people overlook the value of a small college and the tremendous influence that participation in student activities can have during the years from adolescence to adulthood. There were fewer than 250 students when I was at Eureka. As in a small town you couldn't remain anonymous. Everybody was needed, whether it's the Glee Club or helping to edit the school yearbook. There's a job for everyone, and everybody gets a chance to shine at something and build their sense of self-confidence. You get to discover things about yourself that you might never learn if you were lost in the crowd for larger school.

Speaker 1 13:01

Reagan did indeed make the most of his time at Eureka. He majored in economics but really thrived on school activities. He played football, he was part of the student government, he was on the swim team. He immersed himself in whatever opportunity was thrown at him. Reagan was in college in the 1930s and the full contours of the depression were becoming apparent, and one of its first casualties, unfortunately, was Jack's grandest dream. Everything was closing. The price of milk dropped so low that it didn't pay farmers to milk their cows anymore. Hundreds of people were out of work. The cement plants slashed their workforce and, one by one, everything was closing down, and one of the stores closing was Jack's Dream Shoe Store. The Depression naturally cast a pretty oppressive effect on everything. It was a very hard time for Ronald Reagan's family, but he kept at it and made the most of his time at college.

Speaker 1 14:10

In early 1932, with graduation just a few months off, he was trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life. He had done theater at Eureka and his performances had been very well received. So he writes by my senior year at Eureka my secret dream to be an actor was firmly planted. But I knew that in the middle of Illinois in 1932, I couldn't go around saying I want to be an idea. Broadway and Hollywood were a long way from Dixon, but not Chicago, the nation's hub of radio broadcasting. In those days, commercial broadcasting was beginning to grab the hearts of America. Radio was magic. It was theater of the mind. It forced you to use your imagination. Radio had also created a new profession the sports announcer, broadcasting play-by-play reports of football games. Reagan loved football, so that's where he set his mind on becoming a sports announcer on radio.

Speaker 1 15:27

That summer, after graduation, in June 1932, still in the middle of the depression, reagan went to Chicago and started knocking on the doors of radio stations In Chicago. He met rejection everywhere, anywhere, he suggested he wanted to become a radio announcer. He got turned away at the door, usually without even an interview. However, there was a lady at an NBC station in Chicago who gave him good advice. She said in Chicago we can't afford to take people without experience. You've got every reason to try for a job in radio, but first go out to what we call the sticks. You'll find someone who will take you on and give you experience. Then one day you can come to Chicago.

College Years at Eureka

Speaker 1 16:17

And this is when he returns back to Dixon and this is a story I read to you at the opening of the episode and his dad tells him about the job at the sporting goods company. And you know, he's just so thrilled about it and excited to give it his best. And this story is so lovely because it's a great example of his optimistic, go-getter attitude. He is not waiting to be in the perfect place at the perfect time. He's not complaining, he's not whining, he's just making the most of the opportunities he's been presented by God. So ultimately he ends up not getting that job at the shoe store but, heeding to the advice of the lady at NBC, he goes job hunting around Dixon and lands himself a job at a local radio station in Davenport, iowa, as a sports announcer and shortly after starting there at the WOC Davenport, he gets transferred to their sister station at Des Moines to their sister station at Des Moines. And a few weeks after Reagan arrives in Des Moines the channel receives a permit for a 50,000 watt clear channel, which made it at the time one of only about 15 such stations in America and basically, if you worked at one, that was the biggest thing in radio at the time. And because he'd gotten really good scores for his reporting at WOC, he got the sports announcer job at WHO and overnight, at age 22, he finds himself working at one of the most powerful NBC stations in the country and turning his dreams into a reality.

Speaker 1 18:07

In Des Moines, reagan also discovered a love for horseback riding Another example of how he seized every opportunity life offered. A fellow announcer told him about a war department program. If he joined the reserves he'd receive cavalry training from top army horsemen and enjoy unlimited access to military horses, all for free. It was too good a deal to turn down and it sparked a lifelong passion for riding Another story I love, and Bishop Fulton Sheen, who I will do an episode on eventually had this quote. He said the course of life is determined not by the trivial incidents of day to day but by a few decisive moments, and I believe this was one of them. So there he was in Des Moines living his dream. But the winters in Iowa are brutal. So he came up with a plan to escape them. He pitched his boss at WHO a deal. If they cover his expenses, he'd use his vacation to tag along with the Chicago Cubs at their spring training camp in California. This is a team he covered as a sports announcer. The trip will pay off in knowledge about the team he'll be able to use all the coming season. And they bought it and just like that he was off in the winter to sunny california.

Speaker 1 19:33

I think for reagan, his quality of seizing the moment of pushing the envelope, of being enterprising, took him to a lot of places. So, starting in 19, he accompanies the Cubs to their annual trips to Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California, he writes now. Catalina was very close to Hollywood and obviously I had carried around fantasies about becoming an actor for years. He gets introduced to a Hollywood agent through one of his old radio friends and, as fate would have it, the agent likes Reagan. He calls the casting director at Warner Brothers and gets him in for a screen test. Next thing you know he's playing in his first movie.

Speaker 1 20:17

Hollywood studios in those days turned out two kinds of pictures, as they still do A movies and low budget B movies. The B movies were assigned to the newcomers and the lesser known actors and so, like other newcomers, reagan was assigned to the Warner Brothers B unit. His first movie, love is in the Air, did very well and a few days later Warner Brothers extended his contract. He called Nellie and Jack and asked them to come to California. He says Now as a B-star actor in a way, I faced the same kind of problem I faced during my first year at Eureka College when Mack McKenzie, his football coach, relegated me to the fifth string of the football squad.

Speaker 1 21:09

I had made the team. Now I had to make the first string. I decided I had to take my career into my own hands and come up with a plan to marry my new job in Hollywood with my old love for football. I was fascinated with the life story of Knut Rockne, who was the coach at Notre Dame and revolutionized the game of football. So over lunchtime in the commissary he starts talking about the idea of a movie based on the life of Knut Rockne with his industry friends and writing a screenplay for it. Then one day he sees an article in Variety that Warner Brothers is going to make a movie based on the life of Knut Rockne.

Speaker 1 21:56

Reagan is obviously shocked that not only did Warner Brothers steal his idea, but they also bought the rights to his life story and had already screen tested 10 actors for the part of the character he wanted to play, gip. I think personally in this scenario I would really become bitter and resentful, and I think a lot of people would. But Reagan did something different. He runs all the way to the producer's office and asks for a shot at the role. They turn him down, saying he didn't look like the greatest football player, and he says well, what do you mean? I'm five pounds heavier than George Gipp was when he played at Notre Dame. Reagan remembered that a cameraman had once told him that people in the front office only believed what they saw on film. So Reagan gets in his car, drives home, digs out his yearbook photo in the college football uniform and gets back to the studio and puts it on the producer's desk. Next thing you know he's cast in the movie as Gip desk. Next thing you know he's cast in the movie as Gip.

Speaker 1 23:02

The same year he made the Knut Rockne movie, he married Jane Wyman, who was another actor at Warner. They had two children, maureen and Michael, and they divorced in 1948. He doesn't really talk about that marriage much in that book, but I think there's probably plenty of speculation about that in the media if you want to read about that. So he says, after the Rockne movie I began to be cast regularly in A pictures and leading roles. I was also able to buy a home for my parents, the first anyone in our family had ever owned. What a proud moment that must have been.

Breaking into Radio Broadcasting

Speaker 1 23:43

After Rockne he appeared in King's Row, which really elevated him to the degree of stardom that he had dreamed of when he had first arrived in Hollywood. He renewed his contract with Warner Brothers, but this was also the time that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. So shortly thereafter he gets a letter from the War Department ordering him to report in 14 days. But because of his poor eyesight he was confined to continental limits and was not sent out for combat roles, but he worked with an intelligence unit to make training films and documentaries for the Air Force, where also he was phenomenal, but I'll probably skip the details on that. But I just love that. You know, wherever he goes, whatever he's thrown into, he pulls together his interests and, you know, finds a way to express them and does a great job at it. So after the war he gets back to Hollywood and he found himself becoming increasingly involved with contract negotiations and other activities for the Screen Actors Guilt Union. This was probably the beginning of a political transformation for him.

Speaker 1 24:56

At the end of World War II, reagan's view on government was that it was the answer to all of the problems. He did not trust big business. He writes, but I did not like some of the things I saw after VJ Day. If I wanted to buy a new car, a salesman told you it was available only if you paid a sizable fee under the table. Meanwhile, old patterns of racism were reappearing. Before I knew it I was speaking out against the rise of neo-fascism in America. I joined just about any organization I could find that guaranteed to save the world. I really wanted a better world and I think I thought what I was saying would help bring it about Around.

Speaker 1 25:47

This time communism was also starting to spread in Hollywood, he says. I began to wake up to what was happening to the motion picture industry. I learned that communist sympathizers had taken over several important organizations in Hollywood after the war and in 1946 and 1947, I helped lead the guild during a bitter jurisdictional strike in which a rump labor group called CSU tried to take control of the movie industry through intimidation and violence that included threats to throw acid on my face. This experience taught him what was happening in Hollywood and in America. American movies occupied 70% of the playing time on world's movie screens. Then Joseph Stalin had set out to make Hollywood a propaganda machine of Soviet expansionism, communizing the world by gaining control over members of Hollywood and trying to influence the content of movies, and Reagan increasingly started to direct his ire towards the threat of communism in America and became, as one of his fellow actors called him, a one-man battalion of opposition to the attempted communism takeover of Hollywood.

Speaker 1 27:08

His work and his involvement with various citizen organizations during this time led him to get nominated to become the president of the Screen Actors Guild, and at that union he helped artists in the motion industry picture get their name cleared of being wrongly accused of being communist simply because they were liberals. And one of the people he helped was Nancy David, who later became his wife. I mean, nancy became such an important part of Ronald Reagan's life and they had a very rich marriage and he talks extensively about it in his book. In 1954, he got a proposal. So General Electric Company was in the market for a new TV program where they would have a weekly dramatic show in which Ronald Reagan would act only several times a season but he would serve as a host every week. And the reason this happened was because at the time the chairman of GE, ralph Cordner, had also embarked on a decentralization project for the company and he was opening smaller divisions of GE all over the country. But he thought that such a sweeping decentralization may cause some morale problems. So as an adjunct to his job as the host, he asked Ronald Reagan to travel to GE plants around the country as a sort of goodwill ambassador to show that the New York office really did care about its employees all over and give speeches to them. At first his talks were about Hollywood and the GE show. Then on one of the tours he was asked to speak to employees who had been working on a local charity project and he writes.

Speaker 1 28:57

I think everyone expected me to get up and tell a few Hollywood stories, but instead I decided to give a speech about the pride of giving and the importance of doing things without waiting for the government to do it for you. I pointed out that when private groups were involved in helping the needy, none of the contributions were spent on overhead or administrative costs, unlike government relief programs. When I sat down, my remarks got a huge ovation. Well, that changed everything. From then on, the company began to get requests for me to speak before larger audiences and as time went on, the portion of my speech about government began to grow longer and I began to shorten the Hollywood part. No government has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size, and that, in a way, became my theme.

Speaker 1 29:55

In 1960, the year Richard Nixon ran against John F Kennedy for the presidency, ronald Reagan completed his political journey from being a liberal Democrat to a dedicated Republican, he says. The more I learned how some liberal Democrats wanted to rein in the energy of free enterprise and capitalism, create a welfare state and impose a subtle kind of socialism, the more my view changed. Ronald Reagan worked on the political campaigns of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and in 1964, he volunteered in Barry Goldwater's campaign and during the campaign he made a televised speech on Barry's government's agenda and about how you know, the growth of big government was concerning and what point in Ronald Reagan's life. It led a group of California Republicans to urge him to run for governor. Initially he was firmly opposed to running for office, but he writes and I quote but they said I was the only one who could heal the deep wounds in the party that had been left by a bitter split in the party during the 1964 campaign, and so I'd said I'd run.

Hollywood and Film Career

Speaker 1 31:27

In 1966 he was elected the governor of California and as governor he faced a state with a deficit of over 200 million dollars, spending a million dollars more a day than it was taking in, and he says. For a while it seemed that every morning I walked into the capitol somebody was standing at my desk waiting to tell me about a new problem we hadn't known about before. The democrats controlled the legislature and the last thing they wanted to do was to reduce spending. Soon Reagan found himself in a position where he had run and won on a promise to cut spending and rein in the excesses in California. But he found himself hamstrung to do anything because of the Democratic-controlled legislature. But Reagan was not one to back down. So he borrowed FDR's fireside chat idea and started taking his case directly to the public through radio and television Again him roping in his old job into the new challenge at hand and making the most of it. He writes I learned that if you make the public understand what's going on, they'll do the rest. They'll write letters and call their legislators and apply pressure on them. This worked like a charm. He made the progress he wanted to on his measures to cut spending.

Speaker 1 33:03

In his two terms as the governor of California, reagan reduced the size of the government, turned the state's deficit into a surplus, which is crazy to think and accomplish and he did this by reducing the bureaucracy, attracting high quality talent to work for him. The bureaucracy attracting high quality talent to work for him, tightening the welfare estate, running programs that would help welfare recipients find jobs so they could learn some skills and become self-sufficient, and giving them a sustainable path to get off of welfare. And during his two terms as governor of California he was wildly popular. He writes, although many of my supporters wanted me to run for a third term in 1974, I'd accomplished most of what I set out to do and I'd sworn from the beginning that I was going to stop at two terms. Two years later, many of these same people asked me to make a run for the Republican presidential nomination and although it was a very long shot against the incumbent president in my own party, I reluctantly agreed at the party convention in Kansas City when the balloting was over, gerald Ford had the nomination. I had come close, but not close enough. Had the nomination. I had come close, but not close enough. It was a big disappointment because I hate to lose, but I'd always known that challenging an incumbent president was going to be difficult. Ford's people had sent him signals to give him the VP nomination, but Reagan didn't want the job. And after Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter, there were strong calls again within the party for Reagan to run for president.

Speaker 1 34:45

As the campaign of the presidency got underway late that summer in 1980, americans, for a second year in a row, were trying to cope with the ruthless effects of double-digit inflation and there was high unemployment in the economy. And militarily the US was in danger of falling behind the Soviet because of years of neglect. The Soviets were modernizing their fleets and their ground and air forces on a massive scale, and Jimmy Carter's presidency was also marked by the 1979 energy crisis that caused gas shortages. And on the foreign policy stage, he was also grappling with the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held captive for over a year. So there was generally a sense of disappointment in the economy and the country around Jimmy Carter's presidency, and of this time Reagan writes, but to me none was more serious than the fact that America had lost faith in itself. We were told there was a malaise in our nation and America was past its prime. We had to get used to this. Well, I disagreed with that. Yes, we had problems in 1980, a lot of them of our own making but I disagreed with those who said that the solution was to give up and be satisfied with less. We had to recapture our dreams, our pride in ourselves and our country, and regain that unique sense of destiny and optimism that had always made America different from any other country in the world. Wow, that gave me chills reading that that was so powerful. So in the 1980 election, ronald Reagan, no surprise, won the US presidential election in a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter. He secured 489 electoral votes compared to Jimmy Carter's 49. That's insane. And he captured 44 out of the 50 states and that was a big, big political shift in the in the nation.

Speaker 1 37:03

In the white house, you know, reagan had in front of him the task of getting the nation out of an economic crisis. He believed that the excessive tax rates in the country were discouraging incentives for people to produce and he wanted to lower the tax rate. He thought that that would, in the end, generate more economic growth and also greater revenues for the government. He truly believed that reducing the size of the government, eliminating unnecessary regulations and interference in the free market and turning over to private enterprise some of the functions that the government had taken on, would increase efficiencies. However, just like in California, democrats were in charge of Congress and he faced an uphill battle in getting his economic recovery plan through. But just like he had in California, you know he had learned the value of going around the legislature and the power of taking his case directly to the people, and that's what he did in Washington as well. He writes. In July 1981, congress approved much of the plan I'd brought. I had to compromise and accept the 25% reduction over three years instead of the 30% I wanted.

Speaker 1 38:19

The economic expansion that began a year after the first phase of the tax cuts went into effect created jobs, brought down inflation and created a cascade of additional tax revenue for the government. Realizing they could keep more of what they earned, people went out and made more money. They used the money to buy more houses, more furniture, more appliances, more cars. Corporate as well as personal taxes were simplified and reduced to the lowest rate since 1941. Businesses started investing back into their enterprises instead of putting it away into tax shelters. So just taking a step back here to understand the magnitude of what happened when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the US economy was in a dire state, suffering from stagflation, double-digit inflation and high unemployment.

Political Transformation

Speaker 1 39:17

And in this context, his plan, his economic recovery plan, was just so revolutionary because it broke away from, you know, a lot of the conventional policies that preceded Reagan and was a significant departure from the decades of the New Deal and the Great Society policies which had expanded the federal government's role in social welfare and economic regulation. I mean the New Deal, which was launched under FDR, you know, focused on relief and recovery and reform during the Great Depression and you know it created a lot of public works programs and financial regulations and social security to stabilize the economy. But it was responding to an economic crisis and emergency. So you know it was meant to help with that moment and not continue to stay on the Great Society policies you know. On the other hand, under Lyndon Johnson introduced what we still know, you know, medicare and Medicaid, education funding and anti-poverty programs. And these policies were building kind of different from New Deal. They were building on prosperity, but they both ramped up government intervention to address economic and social issues and really introduced big government to America.

Speaker 1 40:42

And so Ronald Reagan inherited an environment of really rampant government spending, high levels of government interference and a tax and spend mindset. I mean it's crazy to think that the top marginal tax rate was 70%. That's insane. He cut it to 50% and he really wanted to change all of this radically with his economic recovery program and that's why he pushed for taxes to be lowered, for regulation to be removed. That was unnecessary. And so his policies set the stage for a nearly two-decade economic expansion. Inflation dropped dramatically, job growth surged, the stock market soared and Reagan's economic vision fundamentally reshaped American and global economic policy.

Speaker 1 41:37

People who were once skeptics wanted to know about his magic sauce. But you know, none of this came easy for him either. He had to fight his way through Congress to get his measures approved and passed and withstand pressure and calls to recall his policies when the results of his policies were not readily apparent. I mean the first year when they were pushing and there were no results. There was a lot of doubt and skepticism, not only just from the Democrats but also from his own party. People thought that maybe he was going too far and that this wasn't going to work. So his ability to just hold fast and stand firm and, you know, I think, his ability to inspire confidence and to articulate complex policies in simple terms to the American people and stand firm in his convictions that his economic transformation was not just a policy shift but it was going to be a turning point in American history. And and it turned out to be so. You know, with the economic expansion underway, reagan turned his attention to the US military, which was another hallmark of his presidency. He prioritized making America's military second to none. He would use this strength to bring about an end to the Cold War and reduce the threat of a nuclear war.

Speaker 1 43:08

Reagan dealt with quite a few foreign policy issues during his presidency and I won't be able to go into a lot of them, but I think the book is full with a lot of them if you want to read more. But the most notable one was the Soviet-US relations On the foreign policy stage. You know he believed in building personal relationships with foreign heads of state. Obviously, you know using his charm and communication skills to foster trust and cooperation and I think that played a key role in advancing the US foreign policy and eventually thawing tensions with the Soviet Union. When Reagan took office, the Soviets had been aggressively building up their military and pursuing their communist aspirations, expanding their influence globally through military buildup and proxy wars, he says.

Speaker 1 44:03

In my speeches and press conferences I deliberately set out to say some frank things about the Russians and to let them know there were new fellows in Washington who had a realistic view of what they were up to and weren't going to let them keep it up. I wanted to let them know that in attempting to continue their policy of expansionism, they were prolonging the nuclear arms race and keeping the world on the precipice of disaster. We wanted deeds, not words. I intended to let them know that we were going to spend whatever it took to stay ahead of them in the arms race. We would never accept second place. The great, dynamic success of capitalism had given us a powerful weapon in our battle against communism Money. I love that line.

Governor of California

Speaker 1 45:04

Reagan showcased so much strength on the foreign policy and the nuclear threat front and I think when people talk about having peace today, I think his case is really instructive because he demonstrated the importance of military strength and might in establishing peace. A lot of people have this idea that somehow peace comes to disarmament and to words, but in reality peace comes to military power and prowess, and that's what ronald reagan demonstrated. You know, reagan countered the soviet threat by championing a policy of peace to strength and significantly increasing us military spending to modernize the armed forces and bolster nuclear deterrence. He also challenged Soviet ideology head-on, branding the USSR the quote-unquote evil empire and promoting freedom and democracy as an antidote to communism. A major feat of Reagan was the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, which was meant to protect against nuclear missiles. It was through the SDI and assertive diplomacy that Reagan successfully pressured the Soviet Union and contributed to the eventual end of the Cold War.

Speaker 1 46:32

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's relationship marked a turning point in the Cold War. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's relationship marked a turning point in the Cold War. Reagan, initially skeptical of the Soviet Union, labeled it the evil empire. However, by the mid-1980s Gorbachev emerged as a reform-minded leader. He championed openness and restructuring and he signaled potential for dialogue. The two leaders. They first met at the 1985 Geneva summit and Reagan invited Gorbachev for a walk so he could have a conversation with him without the diplomats. And this was an important step in establishing a personal relationship between the two. And although no major agreements were reached in this conversation, it laid the groundwork for trust.

Speaker 1 47:20

And that relationship deepened at the 1986 Reykjavik summit where they almost agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons. But Gorbachev threw him a curveball towards the end, asking the US to give up research on the SDI. And Reagan said he would not give up on that, even though he promised that once the US had the SDI technology it would make it available for the rest of the world the world. So, while you know, the talks faltered due to Reagan's insistence on the SDI. The summit really showed that they did have a desire to avoid nuclear catastrophe. And so the next summit in 1987, which was a Washington summit, was a breakthrough. And they both signed the INF Treaty and they eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons for the first time in history. And then you know, of course, reagan's famous 1987 Berlin speech, where he urged Gorbachev to tear down this wall reinforced, you know, his belief in freedom while maintaining diplomatic pressure. You know Reagan's style in foreign diplomacy was definitely unique. He was very firm, but he also had this personable approach and, with a counterpart in Gorbachev who was also willing to reform, he made significant breakthroughs in the Soviet-US relationship.

Speaker 1 48:54

As I said, there is definitely a lot more on his foreign policy and how he navigated the second term of his presidency and the election, but I won't be covering that here. Otherwise this episode would be three hours long. But the book is so well written so hopefully you'll pick up the book and read it for yourself. So hopefully you'll pick up the book and read it for yourself Personally. For me, I am very interested in reading and sharing how successful people got their starts in their career and really-Contra affair you know, the LATAM or the Latin American communism threat, and much more. So grab a copy if that's of interest to you, and I think so.

Speaker 1 49:44

Just to close, as the Cold War tensions eased. You know, reagan's presidency entered its final years with still significant milestones ahead, years with still significant milestones ahead. The Berlin Wall. And for those who don't know, you know, the Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier built in 1961 by East Germany to stop its citizens from fleeing to West Berlin, which was free and democratic. It came to be the most powerful symbol of the cold war because it represented the division between communist east germany and the capitalist west germany, which was free and democratic. And when the wall fell um, you know, it marked the collapse of soviet influence in eastern europe and the beginning of really german reunification. So, you know, the Berlin Wall, which was, you know, still standing during Reagan's term, was beginning to crumble under the weight of reform and growing cries for freedom. And this was, you know, a big contributor from him, of his policies and the diplomacy he led. But but, and by the time he left office in january 1989, reagan had not only redefined the presidency but also cemented his legacy as a transformative leader who revitalized america's economy, restored national confidence, especially in America's military, and helped bring an end to decades of Cold War hostility. And you see that even today, you know he's thought of so dearly by so many in this country.

Speaker 1 51:24

After leaving the White House, reagan turned to California with Nancy, his wife, where they enjoyed a quieter life at their ranch, and in 1994, he announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. It was, unfortunately, the same disease that had struck his mom, nellie, and I think this truly reveals his character and is a great way to, you know, close this episode episode. You know, even in the face of a very brutal disease, his optimism was, you know, was endured. In his letter to the American people, he wrote I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

Speaker 1 52:15

And with that it's a wrap for this first episode, if you made it this far. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a few lessons from Reagan's life that you can take away. I'd love to hear feedback in the comments, if you have any. The next episode will come out shortly and is one that I'm super excited about, and I think it may be one of my all-time favorite books. Till then, happy reading and thank you.