On Thanksgiving Day some years ago, an outgoing president of the United States recorded in his longhand diary that “the Johnny in the bathroom had a mechanical problem” that he tried to fix. The next two days, he lamented that cold, wet conditions kept him from riding his horse, but at least he got a chance to split some wood for the fire.
But by the next Monday, he was back to work, extending a major trade deal with an international rival, deciding against issuing a pardon to a politically controversial figure, and risking a backlash by denying a visa to a foreign rabble-rouser who enjoyed significant international support. The rest of the week included hard work on the coming year’s budget proposal and preparation for a diplomatic visit by a powerful foreign head of state.
Worked in with all of this was what he called “a most productive talk about her future” with his eldest daughter, who had been a frequent guest at the White House and a valued political sounding board.
This might sound like an account of one of those Civil War veteran presidents, or maybe Teddy Roosevelt, but it was Ronald Reagan in 1988. In his historically invaluable unabridged diaries (which I have just finished reading), Reagan provides an intimate, insightful, incisive, and thoroughly engaging window into his remarkably unpretentious life.
Reagan is one of only five presidents who maintained what biographer Douglas Brinkley called “written diaries on a consistent basis. … Unlike so many new diarists who trail off after the first few weeks, he took his task seriously, and in eight years never neglected a daily entry except when he was in the hospital.” Reagan not only was dutiful about his diary, but delightful in it. Even for no audience but himself, his wit and essential decency shone brightly.
The wit, indeed, is prevalent, often of the chuckle-out-loud variety, but most of it is of the subtle kind that must be read in the context of the flow of his thoughts. The decency, though, is nowhere more apparent than in his first diary entry after being shot.
“Getting shot hurts,” he wrote. “Still my fear was growing because no matter how hard I tried to breathe it seemed I was getting less and less air. I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed.”
Then: “But I realized I couldn’t ask for God’s help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed-up young man who had shot me. Isn’t that the meaning of the lost sheep? We are all God’s children and therefore equally beloved by him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold.”
Then: “I opened my eyes to find Nancy there. I pray I’ll never face a day when she isn’t there. Of all the ways God has blessed me, giving her to me and the greatest and beyond anything I ever hope to deserve.”
Reagan, of course, recovered, and the diary shows an exhaustingly active schedule throughout his presidency, and his astute observations throughout refute all suggestions that he showed any mental decline while in office. What never changes, though, is his sincerity and lack of false ego. Even to his own diary, he could be self-deprecating.
Of his first reelection debate against Walter Mondale, he wrote, “Well, I would have to say I lost … I guess I flattened out — anyway, I didn’t feel good about myself.”
About a day in his last Christmas week vacation: “Then the practice tee and 8 holes with Walter. I’ve really forgotten all the things that should be automatic in a golf swing. This once a year golf game has left me a real duffer.”
These diaries are a surprisingly, wonderfully good read. And even all these years later, they are a reminder again that we should be thankful Reagan was our president.
