Reagan Has Always Been a Class Act

Last Sunday, the first day of former President Reagan’s recovery from hip surgery, also was the 20-year anniversary of his departure from California to become the nation’s 40th president. We were a joyful bunch of Californians that day--savoring the ride on Air Force One, on loan from Jimmy Carter.

Reagan was especially cheery as a bunch of us crowded into his cabin to review the draft of the inaugural address he had crafted in longhand the week before. As he ushered us in, he looked out the window somewhere over the Great Plains of America and chuckled in the way we knew would precede the famed Reagan humor. Spreading his arms, he said, “I told Nancy: ‘Honey, now it’s all ours!’ ”

In a sense, for the next eight years, America was all his. This giant of a man would stand astride one of the most remarkable periods of our history. And it was all to begin with his first inaugural address, which my colleagues and I had a peek at that day.

A month after the 1980 election, White House chief of staff-to-be, James Baker, telephoned to ask me to pull “the laboring oar” on the inaugural address, meaning that I would work with Reagan as I had in the past, draining him of every word and thought he had in order to put a draft in front of him that he could work from. He often told me, as he wove his magic in his speeches, that in Hollywood he wasn’t known as a great scriptwriter, but he was a good “script doctor.” And how.

Casting lines out to every speech writer I knew or had heard of, I began gathering ideas and wording. I also turned to a book containing all previous inaugural remarks--a good idea until I came to Lincoln’s second, a masterpiece of poetry and history that would make any wordsmith shrink from the effort.

But Reagan taught me one of the many lessons of communications: Conveying an eloquence of ideas is more important than an eloquence of prose.

Reagan sat down with trusted aide Mike Deaver and me in mid-December 1980 to lay out a road map for his speech. He wanted no laundry list. He made clear from the start that his remarks must be a reassurance that in America, it’s the people and not the government who accomplish things.

Ever gracious, he instructed me that he wanted to turn to departing President Carter on the platform and extend his gratitude for help during the transition. And, Ken, he added, “Be careful not to take a crack at the previous administration.” This wasn’t going to be any stump speech.

Pausing for a moment, he then made clear that he wanted his remarks to reach out to the disaffected. He had recently spoken to Vernon Jordan, then the president of the National Urban League, who told him that it would be valuable to include a paragraph that reached out to African Americans. When I talked with Jordan, he suggested language to accomplish this.

Later, when editing the speech, Reagan looked at a line about an economy with “no barriers born of discrimination” and remarked that, because he sensed there was an increase in anti-Semitism, he wanted to add the word “bigotry” to the sentence. Thus was the genesis of that passage, which was quoted often through the years.

Finally, there were concerns among Reagan’s natural constituency on the right. The talk of nonpartisanship and cooperation with the Democrats stuck in the craw of many of these Reagan loyalists. As often happened, the messenger for this view was his old friend, Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt. In response, Reagan wrote that he would get government back within its means and ease the tax burden. Then he drove the point home: “These will be our first priorities, and on these principles there will be no compromise.” Another line often quoted.

The final struggle was over Reagan’s desire to say something about the American hostages in Iran. Negotiations to release them were nearly complete, and Reagan, knowing the high theater it would be, wanted to announce it during his address. But this meant that he would have to interrupt this all-important speech with a news bulletin, which concerned me. As it turned out, the hostages were released after the inauguration ceremony, a relief to me, but also, for the sake of pure drama, a missed opportunity for Reagan.

On that brisk January day, looking over the monuments that guard our democracy, the sun came from behind the clouds just as Ronald Wilson Reagan took his oath of office and stepped to the podium. His speech concluded with his trademark optimism, that we can resolve any problems that confront us. “After all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”

Act I was vintage Reagan.