Garry Wills - Reagans America: Innocents at Home

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PRAISE FOR GARRY WILLS

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

National Humanities Medal

Sooner or later, anyone who writes about America must reckon with Garry Wills. Not that its easy to do. The books are demanding enoughnot the prose, which is graceful and elegantbut the arguments, which are unfailingly original, often provocative, occasionally subversive and, now and again, utterly perverse, yet stamped every time with the finality of the last word. In his 50 or so books, a handful of them masterpieces, Wills has ranged further than any other American writer of his time, covering much of the western tradition, ancient and contemporary, sacred and profane. Prospect Magazine

Perhaps the most distinguished Catholic intellectual in America over the last 50 years. John L. Allen

NIXON AGONISTES: THE CRISIS OF THE SELF-MADE MAN

Mr. Wills achieves the not inconsiderable feat of making Richard Nixon a sympatheticeven tragicfigure, while at the same time being appalled by him. But superb as it is, his psycho-biography of Mr. Nixon is merely prelude to a provocative essay on political theory. John Leonard, The New York Times Book Review

The wit of Nixon Agonistes is a constant delight. Heckling, breezy, allusive the author is a born reporter, a cartoonist in words, master of a tradition of tongue-in-cheek sassiness that goes back well over a century in American political journalism. Commentary Magazine

Astonishing a stunning attempt to possess that past, that we may all of us escape it. John Leonard, The New York Times Book Review

Nixon Agonistes reads like a combination of H. L. Mencken, John Locke and Albert Camus. The New York Times Book Review

Only a man who cant stand to be around people would allow such a figure to be compiled about himself. Garry Wills has caught that quality in Nixon Agonistes, which must be the best book so far about the man, the best written, the best thought out. The New York Review of Books

Wills succeeds, in the end, in making his point, about Nixon, and about America the topic is fascinating, and Wills has ideas which never occurred to other writers. The Harvard Crimson

[Nixon Agonistes is] still the one indispensable primer on modern American politics aprs le dluge of the clamorous 1960s, part Mencken, part Aristotle, part Moby Dick. Prospect Magazine

THE KENNEDY IMPRISONMENT

The ultimate Kennedy book. New Republic

[The Kennedy Imprisonment has] an important thesis and a ringing climax. Kirkus Reviews

REAGANS AMERICA

Ambitious and insightful, this study examines aspects of Ronald Reagans life and career that account for his extraordinary popularity with the American public. Wills, author of Nixon Agonistes and Inventing America, portrays a Reagan whose optimistic personality is in harmony with the deep instincts of Americans. The President, he maintains, embodies the countrys values and its collective dreams and memories. In his show-business years, Reagan was the voice of midwestern baseball and the plain-spoken hero of horse epics; later, as Hollywood union leader and California governor, he was the complete company man. As President, his simple answers in the face of troubling complexities have let Americans feel positive about themselves. While sometimes overdetailed, Willss study succeeds admirably in isolating the sources of Reagans appeal. Publishers Weekly

Reagans America is a fascinating biography whose impact is enhanced by techniques of psychological profile and social history. Los Angeles Times

The best book yet by a profound student of the culture of the American presidency. Mr. Wills illuminates the symbiosis linking Middle American religion, the illusory reality of Hollywood, Ronald Reagans career, and the meaning of his presidency. The book is consistently entertaining. The conclusions about American politics are disturbing. Foreign Affairs

A timely and brilliant analysis that presages and enlightens the current Presidential crisis in foreign policy. Written with all the wit, originality and intelligence that Wills brought to Inventing America, Nixon Agonistes and The Kennedy Imprisonment, this book, though cutting a swath through a now-familiar collection of mythopoeic falsehoods, serves not to indict Ronald Reagan, but to unearth the roots of his indestructible and charismatic faith A provocative, readable, unique account with sources, inspirations and implications far beyond mere politics. Kirkus Reviews

Reagans America

Innocents at Home

Garry Wills

To Ken McCormick

gentleman, editor, friend

CONTENTS

Reagans America: The View from 2017

Ronald Reagan has ascended into the mythosphere, levitated there by bipartisan incensing. Even Barack Obama said on campaign that he wanted to imitate Reagans transformational presidency. Grover Norquist tried to rename every airport and school after Reaganeven offices of the diabolic federal government could, in his view, be exorcized by putting Reagans name on them. Reagan, we are assured, miraculously cut welfare and taxes and the deficit.

This magic arithmetic at home was replicated by Reagans magic demolition of the Soviet Union abroad. Like Joshua at the walls of Jericho, he said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall and, even without rams horns blowing, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire, and it soon became a shriveled empire.

But before he has been resolved into a dew of holy water, it is best to remember that other things were at work around him. Reagan is supposed to have proved that drastic tax cuts increase economic gains. But his first drastic tax cut instantly doubled the national debt, and would eventually triple it. He tried to fight this with ten later tax increases. These were incremental, temporary, indirect, and half-hidden (derived from things like broadening the basethat is, not increasing the rate of taxation but the number of tax payers), and they added up to the largest peacetime increase of taxes ever. He had promised to cut government size, agencies, and personneland he made them all larger.

Reagan talked like a warmonger, but acted like a peacemonger. After he sent troops to Lebanon as an interposition force helping the government there fight terrorists, Hezbollah fighters killed 221 American military men at the Beirut airport. Reagan did not retaliate; he just told the remaining American troops to deploy to their ships and sail off. There was no retaliation, luckily, and no engagement in another quagmire war.

On the Soviet Union, too, Reagan mongered more peace than war. After calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, he proved surprisingly willing to deal with the devil. His fans like to quote him saying, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. They forget that this came in the middle of four summit meetings Reagan held with Gorbachev, against all four of which his rightwing cheerleaders warned him, saying he was being played for a sucker. He replied that in Gorbachev he had at last found a Soviet leader he could deal with to slow or reverse the arms race. He first met Gorbachev at Geneva in 1985, leading both men to think progress could be made on arms control. Then they met at Reykjavk on October 12, 1986, where Reagan nearly gave some of his own entourage heart attacks when he spoke of eliminating all nuclear weapons but his Strategic Defense Initiative (nukes in space). Those accompanying him knew that SDI was farther off from practical use than Gorbachev thoughtbut it was enough to lead to stalemate.