Reagan and History

Friday will mark the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, eight years that still defy classification by traditional political measures. As with many American presidencies, they were White House years best defined by anomaly and contradiction.

Reagan once asked: Are Americans better off today than they were eight years ago? Some are. A few are much better off. Some are worse off. Most have muddled along much the way they were. The Reagan Administration spanned the deepest recession in a half-century, followed by the longest peacetime economic expansion in history, topped off by stupendous increases in both consumer and federal debt, leaving the nation vulnerable to a big chill in the economy.

The debt was accumulated by a President who took office denouncing Democrats for their loathsome budget deficits, mortgages on the future for the temporary convenience of the present. Today the national debt, which started out at $1 trillion eight years ago, is nearly $3 trillion. The mortgage already encumbers generations of the distant future.

Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the evil empire and then, suddenly, was chums with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, signing disarmament accords and exchanging annual summit meetings. As the Soviets began withdrawing forces from Afghanistan, and the Cubans from Angola, Reagan said that the new American toughness and armed might had put democracyon the march across the globe. But there are anomalies and contradictions here as well. By some measures military strength did not rise with military spending, and toughness clearly worked better in some places overseas than in others.

Reagan’s single-minded pursuit of a few basic ideas was in some ways a mark of consistency,but the record is shot through with inconsistency --a common condition in Washington, where politics dictates the last chapter of so many issues. Reagan abhored tax increases, but was forced to embrace some. He wished away all signs of prejudice in the nation, but fought nearly every effort to strengthen the legal rights of minorities. He preached morality in and out of government, but presided over an Administration beleaguered by allegations of unethical conduct and conflict of interest.

At times Reagan seemed almost invincible, personally and politically. His public-relations men made a virtue of time off, of not worrying on a job that had crushed other Presidents because they did worry. In his farewell television chat Reagan could gloss over the debt, the homeless and other unresolved problems to conclude simply: “We’ve done our part.”

Surely he brushed aside the dreary doubts and difficulties of the 1960s and ‘70s. But did he nudge the nation toward a more conservative normalcy, or did it take him where it wanted to go? Probably some of both. For many Americans Reagan instilled a fresh sense of confidence in the country on the eve of its third century. Freed of many governmental restraints, private enterprise could wheel and deal as in the good old days, eroding the economic security of many Americans in the process.

Reagan’s record will be difficult to unravel, because many Americans are fond of him as a person but dislike his policies and actions. Yet the one anomaly and contradiction by which Americans--and historians--are most likely to judge Reagan’s eight years is in U.S.-Soviet relations. How much of the thaw in the Cold War he engineered and how much fell in his lap is and will be a matter of debate. But the fact remains that he took office thinking of ways to deploy nuclear weapons and left having worked out a plan to destroy them. He helped pull the superpowers away from nuclear confrontation. For that alone, history will judge him well.