How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life

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Summary: What a phenomenal book!
Review: Peter Robinson's book gets at who Ronald Reagan really was in a way that none of the other Reagan bios really do. It is funny, touching, and inspiring...a truly wonderful read.

Rating:
Summary: A synthesis that works
Review: Robinson's book is equal parts a memoir from his time in the White House as a young speechwriter for the Reagan administration, a core-sample biography of the 40th president, and Chicken Soup-like advice for the young professional. By juxtaposing Reagan's work habits in the White House (he was an avid reader and writer, and was very hands-on when it came to his speeches) and bringing up the formative experiences of Reagan's life, you get a portrait - not a comprehensive one, but an indicative one - of a president who was working very hard to make it look very easy. Drawing a contrast to Martin Sheen's portrayal of a fictional president on television, Robinson highlights the contrast between image and reality:

"My mistake lay in assuming that the intensity must reach a peak or climax in the person of the President. If the people who worked for him were driven and harried, it stood to reason that the President himself must be the most driven and harried of all. "The West Wing" makes the same assumption. Just look at the way Martin Sheen plays the role of chief executive. The man's anguished soul searching never lets up.

"Yet in the Reagan White House, the intensity didn't peak in the person of the President. It evaporated..."

With the enigma that still seems to surround those who search for the "real Reagan", a portrait of his life and work put in contrast to the author, an underling in the White House who was at the beginning stages of his professional career, provides a fresh comparison that helps the reader learn about Reagan's better qualities and why they should be emulated.

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Summary: How did Reagan do it?
Review: The central question of Robinson's book is, "How did Reagan do it?"

Robinson's personal observations while working for President Reagan along with interviews with friends and associates provides insight into the virtues and character of Ronald Reagan from which we can all learn. A prospective view, as it were, of Reagan's life for use today.

Robinson assumed Reagan's serenity was a result of his luck in life's lottery. A closer examination of the facts revealed a different case. Reagan's father was an alcoholic in a small Midwestern town at a time when the children of alcoholics "suffered a particular kind of hell."

Reagan's first wife, Jane Wyman, divorced him resulting in "the worse trauma of Reagan's life."

And then his movie career ended in his early forties leading to a television career (then considered a lesser medium) because he "needed the work."

Robinson's conclusion? "He was serene because he's been unlucky, learning to bring good from bad so thoroughly that he retained his equanimity even after an attempt on his life."

Through a series of aphorisms Robinson draws lessons from the life of Ronald Reagan: "When life buries you, dig." "Do your work." "Life is a drama. Do something." "A bias for action." "Words matter." "You have a head. Use it." "Easy does it." "Laughter is a profession of faith." "Say your prayers." "You matter."

Reagan's former work as a lifeguard and actor figured prominently in the development of his character. As a lifeguard he had saved the lives of seventy-seven swimmers in the Rock River. In contrast to Marxism's belief in the inevitability of history, Reagan had personal experience that one person can make a difference in the lives of others and in history.

As an actor Reagan became accustomed to the idea of alternative endings. A fellow speechwriter put it this way, "He understands open-endedness and contingency. He sees life is a drama in which a lot of scenes still haven't been written."

During Robinson's tenure at the White House there was posted on a White House bulletin board a card which read, "Pray as if everything depended on God. Work as if everything depended on you."

This unattributed aphorism of faith and free will was first coined by St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Robinson writes of that motto, "That, I thought, was a neat summary of the way Ronald Reagan led his life, and ever since I've recognized that habit or pattern of life as an ideal."

The United States was blessed to have Ronald Reagan serve as our fortieth President. As his old adversary Mikhail Gorbachev stated, "If someone else had been in his place, I don't know if what happened would have happened."

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Summary: This book changed MY life.
Review: The moment I saw Peter Robinson on a television program touting this book, I knew I had to own it. While I was a child growing up during the Reagan administration, even then I was keenly aware of how great and enigmatic the fortieth president was. This book did give an excellent insider's view of the Reagan White House, including great stories and 'naming names' if you will. Yet Robinson also explored Reagan's weaknesses - his trouble connecting with his children as well as trusting those under him during Iran-Contra, even though his gut told him otherwise.

Bottom line - As great as Ronald Reagan was, he was still human with faults and imperfections all his own. The important lesson is not what happens when you fall - we all do - but how you respond. Reagan came back from an assassination attempt and political scandal. He had a job to do and a Cold War to win. You need only to look at the people who lined the streets and filled the rotunda during the week of remembrance to see the result.

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Summary: Inspirational Tome for Our Times
Review: The nimble Peter Robinson has taken readers into the Reagan White House and invited us to share his experiences of working for and learning from the 40th President of the United States.

Robinson combines personal and professional anecdotes that reflect the values and standards of conduct that he honed during his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and then applied to his bachelor life and then family life as a husband and father of five. (Robinson was just 25 years old when he went to work in the Reagan-Bush administration.)

Strong, heartfelt chapter headings and messages such as "When Life Buries You, Dig", "You Have a Head, Use It" and "You Matter", each underscore the philosophy of the Republican Party: individuals need to accept personal responsibility for their lives and decisions they make - and make the most of it.

Whether you're 25 or 65, HOW RONALD REAGAN CHANGED MY LIFE will have something to say to you regardless of your politics. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: "When life buries you, start digging."
Review: The pony story, one that Reagan told often, epitomizes his unbridled optimism, even in the face of sheer adversity. Peter Robinson, speechwriter for VP Bush and later for President Reagan, recounts this story along with many other amusing and inspiring anecdotes of his Reagan years. Robinson, a lifelong Republican and the speechwriter behind the "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall" speech, delineates 10 sagacious lessons learned from his commander in chief, all of which I found applicable to my own life, in an entertaining and informative read that any conservative is sure to enjoy.

Robinson, just 25 years old when he became the VP's speechwriter, speaks candidly of the ongoing battle of the speechwriters, the unwavering true believers, versus the malleable, if not subversive, pragmatists in the administration. Of Baker, Robinson recorded in his journal in 1983, "As far as I'm concerned, the list of adjectives that applies to the pragmatist reads like the entry in Roget's Thesaurus under the heading for 'jerk.'"

Robinson tells of the amusingly pointed speech written by his buddy Josh Gilder that, for all intents and purposes, quashed the Democrats' bid for raising taxes: "'My veto pen is drawn and ready, and I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers.' Reagan paused for a full, rounded beat, his eyes alight with pleasure. 'Go ahead. Make my day.' A couple of hours later, the effort to raise taxes collapsed. Josh and I exchanged high fives." Classic Reagan. Firm, resolute, doing what's in the best interest of Americans, and, as always, sticking to his guns.

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Summary: REAGAN DIDN'T JUST CHANGE LIVES, HE SAVED 'EM
Review: THE REAGAN THEORY

Why do I think Ronald Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th Century, on par with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt? Aside from his good character, his economic triumphs and patriotism, it comes down to a theory that I came up with after hearing Margaret Thatcher say he won the Cold War "without firing a shot." First, it entails an analysis of World War II, in which some 50 to 60 million people died, yet the world says it was worth it to defeat Hitler and Japan. This leads to my theory, which is based on the unfought World War III. Say this struggle was fought between freedom, led by the U.S., and Communism, led by the U.S.S.R., between 1983 and 1989. Say that during this period, 50 to 60 million people died, and the world was caught up in an Apocalypse just as terrible as the one fought in the 1940s. Say that, through better technology, leadership, military doctrine, and with the help of God, the U.S. wins World War III. Say further that the political fallout of the war is exactly and precisecly that with which actually happened in 1989-91. I say that had it happened this way, the world would again say it was worth it, to defeat Communism. Reagan did it without firing a shot, and this is why I love him so much. Furthermore, in an ironic twist, Bill Clinton owes much of his success to Reagan. The Republicans were victims of their own success in 1992. Having defeated Communism, the Military Industrial Complex came to a standstill, causing the brief economic downturn that cost George Bush his re-election. This in turn led to the Cold War dividend in which all those smart defense techies fueled the Internet revolution. Clinton, presiding over a world made peaceful by Reagan-Bush policies, his feet held to the fire by a Republican Congress bent on maintaining Reagan's economic principles, takes credit (and some of it rightly so) for a period of huge expansion of the economy.

STEVEN TRAVERS
Author of "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman"
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, Too!
Review: The Republican Party was shaped by several important presidents. Lincoln, who believed not only in freedom, but that the Constitution means something (the "living Constitution folk are the true heirs of the successionists). Teddy Roosevelt, the great Republican conservationist, who busted trusts and monopolies, clearing the way for one of the great platforms of the Republican Party that is still going strong after a century: free trade and fair trade. Coolidge, who said, "Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery" and "The government is best which governs least." Then there was Ronald Reagan, who put it all together. After doing much good work as a union president and California governor, and several unsuccessful tries for the Republican presidential nomination, he arrived on the scene in 1979/80 when the U.S. was in a ditch economically and morally. Coming seredipidously he (apparently) almost single-handedly turned America around in morale and in its shame at being a superpower and brought the U.S. economy to heights it had never seen before. And during it all, he communicated what Republicanism is so everyone who would could understand it: The belief that the Constitution was the bedrock of our law and protector (not giver) of American freedom; free and fair trade; economic growth by trusting individuals and corporations with their own money (which gave us a nearly twenty-year economic boom that was unstoppable even with some of the foolish policies of his successors -- remember, Reagan had a degree in economics); that excessive taxation and regulation stifle not only economies but the individual spirit; and the government should get out of the way and let people get on with their lives.

I was a liberal through the 1980s and never understood why anyone liked Reagan. But something happened in my life that made me take all my preconceptions and the baggage I'd accumulated and throw it out. I rebuilt my personal worldview from scratch, vowing to keep those policies I once held and discard those that were untenable. One by one, the old ideas crashed in the face of two years of reading, consideration, and logic. What finally decided me was Reagan's final appearance on "Firing Line" in the early 1990s where he explained supply side economics. I'd never gotten it because I never listened. Thank you, Mr. President Reagan, from the heart of one of your final converts in your public life. After considering your words and realizing you were right, it was liberating for me to admit, after years of struggle, "I am a conservative".

While it is fascinating to read insider accounts of the administration of the greatest president of the latter half of the twentieth century (and while this former speechwriter's book is more substantive than the entertaining THE RIGHT MAN by former speechwriter to President G. W. Bush, David Frum), it's still not the necessary answer to the misguided DUTCH, a woefully inept biography. While HOW RONALD REAGAN CHANGED MY LIFE is well-written (it is by a former speechwriter) and nicely anecdotal, a truly substantive biography of President Reagan, who meant so much to so many Americans, still needs an attempt by a literary Edmond Hillary. A great man like Ronald Reagan is a cornucopia of books such as this, and it's good to see them multiplying; but it's still nibbling around the edges of greatness.

Rating:
Summary: Life Changing
Review: There are few books I've read that are as thought provoking as well as entertaining as this one. I can honestly say this book made me a better person.

Rating:
Summary: splendid
Review: This a splendid book about a great and heroic man - the man who played a huge part in ending the Cold War and bringing down communism bloodlessly, who gave the US 20 million new jobs and the longest period of sustained economic growth in its history, and who, with some other heroic if unlikely figures, bought Western, Judeo-Christian, civilization and democracy a new lease of life. Ronald Reagan did more than save the world we live in: he gave us in the 21 Century a new start. Thank you, Peter Robinson, for imparting these values (I came across your name searching the Larry Niven website and I'm glad I did). This is a superb book and I can't praise it too highly. This book penetrates some of the enigmas round Reagan and shows some of the reasons for his greatness. Reading it is a tonic for the spirit. I can't think of a better Christmas present.