The Reagan Diaries

Last updated

The Reagan Diaries
The Reagan Diaries.jpg
Editor Douglas Brinkley
Author Ronald Reagan
LanguageEnglish
GenreDiary
PublishedMay 22, 2007 (2007-05-22)
May 19, 2009 (2009-05-19) (The Reagan Diaries Unabridged)
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages784
ISBN 0-06-087600-X
OCLC 85850929
973.927092 B 22
LC Class E877 .A3 2007

The Reagan Diaries is an edited and published version of the diaries kept by Ronald Reagan during his presidency. The book was edited by Douglas Brinkley and was published by HarperCollins in 2007, three years after Reagan's death. [1] It reached the number one spot on The New York Times Best Seller list. The complete diaries of his presidency were published in an unabridged form in 2009. [2]

Contents

Reagan's diaries

Reagan was one of five U.S. presidents to have kept a consistent diary as president, and the only one to do so each day, never neglecting an entry (even when he was in the hospital recovering from his assassination attempt). [3] The diaries number five volumes of thick, maroon, leather-bound books, normally kept in the White House residence, written in simple, sing-song prose, with many misspellings. [4]

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan made the diaries available to be transcribed in 2005, and the Reagan Library Foundation partnered with HarperCollins to print them in 2007. [5] The company paid seven figures for the world publication rights. [6]

In them, Reagan wrote about his relationship with his children, once writing that he refused to talk to his son, Ron, and about his relationship, love, devotion, for his wife. When Nancy Reagan was away on her frequent "Just Say No" anti-drug crusades, Reagan wrote in his diary about going "upstairs to a lonely old house," and noted their anniversary as "29 years of more happiness than any man could rightly deserve." [3] Also writing about his wife, he stated "I pray I'll never face a day when she isn't there." Although he was not a regular churchgoer, his simple faith is consistent in the diaries, and he never spelled out even mild swear words, with "hell" being written as h--l, and "damn" as d--n. [4]

Compared to other Presidential writings of innermost thoughts, Reagan's thoughts appear far more shallow. [1] However, their original intent does not suggest that they were meant to capture deep thoughts. [7] One reviewer wrote, "No one expected Reagan to be introspective or philosophical in his diary, ... which is why he elided his mild cursing ("d--n" and "h--l") and was circumspect in other ways". [8]

The head archivist at the Reagan Library, Mike Dugan, described Reagan's writings by saying, "I wouldn't call it an introspective diary, but he states his position. What you read confirms that what you saw with Reagan is what you got." [5]

The actual diaries are on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Reagan</span> First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989

Nancy Reagan was an American film actress who was the first lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989, as the second wife of President Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard V. Allen</span> US National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan 1981–1982

Richard Vincent Allen was United States National Security Advisor under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982. In 1977, prior to Reagan's presidential election in November 1980, he served as Reagan's chief foreign policy advisor. Afterwards, he became a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commonplace book</span> Method of knowledge compiling

Commonplace books are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Reagan</span> American liberal political commentator

Ronald Prescott "Ron" Reagan is an American political commentator and broadcaster. Reagan is a former radio host and political analyst for KIRO and Air America Radio, with which he hosted his own daily three-hour show. He has also been a contributor to MSNBC. His liberal views contrast with those of his conservative father, President Ronald Reagan. He has been an outspoken critic of the modern-day Republican Party and has insisted his father would be "ashamed" over the influence of Donald Trump in the Republican Party. Donald Trump has said that Ronald Reagan was one of his influences. Ron Reagan is the only biological son of Ronald Reagan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Gerald Ford</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1974 to 1977

Gerald Ford's tenure as the 38th president of the United States began on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and ended on January 20, 1977. Ford, a Republican from Michigan, had been appointed vice president on December 6, 1973, following the resignation of Spiro Agnew from that office. Ford was the only person to serve as president without being elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. His presidency ended following his narrow defeat in the 1976 presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter, after a period of 895 days in office. His 895 day presidency remains the shortest of all U.S. presidents who did not die in office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald Reagan Presidential Library</span> Presidential library in Simi Valley, California

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is the presidential library and burial site of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States (1981–1989), and his wife Nancy Reagan. Located in Simi Valley, California, the library is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tear down this wall!</span> 1987 Ronald Reagan speech in West Berlin

On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, United States president Ronald Reagan delivered a speech commonly known by a key line from the middle part: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan called for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patti Davis</span> Actress, author, and daughter of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis

Patricia Ann "Patti" Davis is an American actress and author. She is the daughter of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Reagan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Ronald Reagan</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1981 to 1989

Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over Democrat incumbent president Jimmy Carter and independent congressman John B. Anderson in the 1980 presidential election. Four years later in the 1984 presidential election, he defeated former Democratic vice president Walter Mondale to win re-election in a larger landslide. Reagan served two terms and was succeeded by his vice president, George H. W. Bush, who won the 1988 presidential election. Reagan's 1980 landslide election resulted from a dramatic conservative shift to the right in American politics, including a loss of confidence in liberal, New Deal, and Great Society programs and priorities that had dominated the national agenda since the 1930s.

Arthur Edmund Morris was an American-South African writer, known for his biographies of U.S. Presidents. His 1979 book The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and was the first of a trilogy of books on Roosevelt. However, Morris sparked controversy with his 1999 book, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, due to its extensive use of fictional elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Brinkley</span> American historian (born 1960)

Douglas Brinkley is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is a history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Historical Society, and a contributing editor to the magazine Vanity Fair. He is a public spokesperson on conservation issues. He joined the faculty of Rice University as a professor of history in 2007. Brinkley joined the board of directors for the National Archives Foundation in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Ford</span> President of the United States from 1974 to 1977

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party, Ford assumed the presidency after President Richard Nixon resigned, under whom he had served as the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974 following Spiro Agnew's resignation. Prior to that, he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Shirley</span> American political consultant and author

Craigan Paul Shirley is an American political consultant and author of several books on Ronald Reagan.

The bibliography of Ronald Reagan includes numerous books and articles about Ronald Reagan. According to J. David Woodard, a political science professor, more than 11,000 books on Reagan have been published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Ryan</span> American newspaper executive and political consultant

Frederick Joseph Ryan Jr. is an American media entrepreneur, political analyst, author and lawyer who served as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post from 2014 to 2023. He was the president and chief operating officer of Allbritton Communications Company and founding chief executive officer and president of Politico. He was the chief of staff for former President Ronald Reagan from 1989 to 1995 and is the chairman of the board of trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Previously, he was the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and acted in Hollywood films from 1937 to 1964, the same year he energized the American conservative movement. Reagan's basic foreign policy was to equal and surpass the Soviet Union in military strength, and put it on the road to what he called "the ash heap of history". By 1985, he began to cooperate closely with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he became friends and negotiated large-scale disarmament projects. The Cold War was fading away and suddenly ended as the Soviets lost control of Eastern Europe almost overnight in October 1989, nine months after Reagan was replaced in the White House by his vice president, George H. W. Bush, who was following Reagan's policies. The dissolution of the Soviet Union took place in December 1991. In terms of the Reagan Doctrine, he promoted military, financial, and diplomatic support for anti-communist insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and numerous other countries. For the most part, local communist power collapsed when the Soviet Union collapsed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign</span> American political campaign

In the 1980 United States presidential election, Ronald Reagan and his running mate, George H. W. Bush, were elected president and vice president, defeating incumbents Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale of the Democratic Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald Reagan in music</span> Mentions of Ronald Reagan in popular music

The appearance of Ronald Reagan in music includes mentions and depictions of the actor-turned-politician in songs, albums, music videos, and band names, particularly during his two terms as President of the United States. Reagan first appeared on a few album covers during his time as a Hollywood actor, well before his political career. During the 1960s, folk, rock, and satirical musicians criticized Reagan in his early years as Governor of California for his red-baiting and attacking of the Berkeley-based Free Speech Movement. In the 1980s, songs critiquing Reagan became more widespread and numerous once he ascended to national office and involved himself in the renewal of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, social conservatism, right-wing evangelicalism, and his economic policies in relation to low-income people. While references to Reagan during his presidency appear in pop music, his presence in song lyrics and on album covers is often associated with the hardcore punk counter-culture of the 1980s.

<i>Killing Reagan</i> 2015 popular history book

Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency is a book written by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard about the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It is the fifth in the Killing series, following Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, and Killing Patton. The book was released on September 22, 2015, and topped The New York Times Best Sellers List.

<i>The Reagans</i> (miniseries) Television documentary

The Reagans is a 2020 American television documentary miniseries about former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan. The four-part series was directed by Matt Tyrnauer and aired on Showtime starting on November 15, 2020. The series received positive reviews from critics, who praised the series for its coverage of the Reagan presidency, but stated that it could have provided more in-depth coverage.

References

  1. 1 2 Shribman, David. (May 22, 2007). "'Diaries' reveals the man behind the presidency". The Boston Globe. Retrieved June 16, 2007.
  2. Jaffe, Ina (May 14, 2009). "Diaries Offer Candid View Of Reagan's World". All Things Considered . NPR . Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  3. 1 2 Brinkley, Douglas. (June 2007). "The Reagan Diaries". Vanity Fair. Retrieved June 5, 2007.
  4. 1 2 Lemann, Nicholas. (May 28, 2007). "O Lucky Man! The diaries of Ronald Reagan". The New Yorker. Retrieved June 16, 2007.
  5. 1 2 Bakalis, Anna. (May 20, 2007). "Library gets first look at Reagan Diaries". Ventura County Star. Retrieved June 17, 2007.
  6. Motoko, Rich (May 3, 2007). "History Made Intimate Through Reagan's Diaries". The New York Times. pp. Section E, p. 3 Column 1. Retrieved June 16, 2007.
  7. Phillips, Kevin. (June 2007). "Reagan on Reagan". New York Times. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
  8. Hayward, Steven. (November 2007). "Reagan and the Historians". Claremont Review of Books. Retrieved October 18, 2008.