Steadfastness: Both a Source of Strength and a Failing

Bidding farewell to the nation in a valedictory address Wednesday night, Ronald Reagan closed his tenure on a note that had been denied to his predecessors for nearly three decades: “My friends,” he declared proudly, “we did it.”

After five straight presidencies cut short by death, disgrace, rejection or failure, Reagan completed two full terms--with his unshakeable optimism still unshaken, his unquenchable faith in his own vision still unquenched.

This steadfastness has accounted for much of Reagan’s strength--lending stability to his presidency in times of crisis and the ring of conviction to his appeals for public support. At the same time, his ability to see the world as he wishes it to be also contributed to some of his greatest failings--blinding him to the unfolding reality of the Iran-Contra scandal, for example, and to the cascading problem of U.S. debt.

And both the strength and the weakness of Reagan’s commitment to his own personal reality were on display in his valedictory. Reagan spotlighted the highs of his tenure while skirting, avoiding or reinterpreting the lows.

‘Freedom Man’

He hailed an American sailor as “freedom man” after receiving a letter describing the sailor’s encounter with grateful Asian boat people. But the President made no mention of the continuing captivity of nine American hostages in Beirut.

He praised America’s economic growth in the past eight years. But he skated quickly past the massive federal budget deficit. And he ignored totally the nation’s decline from the world’s greatest creditor to its largest debtor.

As he has throughout his tenure, Reagan also presented his policies as springing from traditional American values and credited the spirit of the people with the achievements of his Administration.

” . . . I won a nickname--’the Great Communicator,’ Reagan said. “But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference--it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full blown from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation--from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

The total absence of the hostages from Reagan’s text was probably the point where the speech’s recounting of the record departed most notably from what history will record. Reagan, after all, rode into office in large part on Jimmy Carter’s inability to solve the Iran hostage crisis, and Reagan’s concern over the fate of hostages in Lebanon drove the Administration to its greatest crisis: the arms-for-hostage swap between the United States and Iran.

Yet since his inauguration eight years ago on the day the Tehran hostages were released, 57 Americans have been kidnaped off the streets of Beirut and in volatile southern Lebanon. Nine are among at least 15 foreigners still held there.

Died in Captivity

All but one of the Americans have been held longer than the 444 days of the Tehran hostages, and two--Terry Anderson, the former Associated Press Beirut correspondent, and Thomas Sutherland, American University of Beirut’s dean of agriculture--have been held three times longer. Two Americans--CIA station chief William Buckley and American University of Beirut librarian Peter Kilburn--have died in captivity.

During the Reagan years, moreover, despite the President’s stern rhetoric, terrorism has grown steadily as a national security problem--one the public now perceives as a greater threat than communism, according to recent public opinion polls.

The United States has also had three embassies blown up--two in Lebanon, one in Kuwait. The suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 marked the greatest loss of military personnel since the Vietnam War and also destroyed the entire CIA station there. The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 last month, many of whose victims were Americans, is widely considered the single most serious terrorism attack ever against this country.

As his other greatest accomplishment, Reagan listed “the economic recovery,” and, the economy’s performance judged by many standards has been strong during his stewardship. Reagan, measuring since the depth of the 1981-82 recession, hailed the creation of “19 million new jobs.” The somewhat smaller figure of 16 million jobs created since he took office still remains a substantial sum, although not much different from the job creation rate of the mid-1970s.

Other measures that the President left aside, however, have been negative. Reagan’s economic policies, which relied on foreign capital to finance the budget deficit, led to a huge increase in the value of the dollar and a trade deficit that hit a record $170 billion in 1987. When he began as President, the United States was the world’s largest creditor. It now owes more to foreigners than any other nation.

Reagan claimed in his speech that he had “summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them here at home.” In fact, however, his Administration is viewed by many economists as one of the most protectionist in modern times, erecting new barriers to imports of automobiles, steel, textiles, semiconductors, sugar, machine tools, beef, motorcycles and lumber, among other products.

Finally, Reagan gave only the briefest of mentions to the federal budget deficit, which he called one of his “regrets.” The deficits of the Reagan years, peaking in 1986 at about $214 billion, were unprecedented in history. The problem hangs on today as the most immediate and difficult challenge for President-elect Bush.

In the past, Reagan consistently has refused to accept any blame for the deficit, and in a recent speech, he blamed the problem on an “iron triangle” of Congress, special interest groups and the media. Wednesday, he took a different tack. “Tonight isn’t for arguments,” he said. “And I’m going to hold my tongue.”

Staff writers Robin Wright and Art Pine contributed to this story.