History vs. drama

Thank you, David Shaw, for such an intelligent and well put together piece on this subject (“History Is All the Drama Needed for Reagan’s Story,” Nov. 9). It’s been so frustrating to watch the debate about what’s proper and what’s fair spin out of control to a place where the available facts -- Reagan’s record on AIDS was nonexistent to just plain awful -- were somehow left behind.

Shana Naomi Krochmal

San Francisco

Shana Naomi Krochmal is the director of communications and public affairs for the STOP AIDS Project.

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As a historian of presidential families, the author of the book “First Ladies” upon which the original “too soft” version of the Reagan miniseries was based and sold to ABC in 1998, and a producer of the project, I believe I would have had too much to say about the entire subject of history and drama for such a small window and not done as well-parsed, insightful, balanced, fair and honest a manner as did David Shaw.

The heart of what Shaw correctly declares is as timeless today as it was in the day when Shakespeare wrote of kings and ladies for the Elizabethan stage. I have always argued with historians in Washington and screenwriters in Los Angeles that history does not necessarily make good drama, and good drama is not usually good history. They’re two entirely different disciplines. I don’t think anyone knew that better than Ronald Reagan, who not only played the Gipper but also played baseball great Grover Cleveland Alexander -- and, man, was the plot of that movie far from truth.

Thomas Jefferson was never joined in Philadelphia by his wife as portrayed in that fantastic musical play “1776”; Franklin Roosevelt was never as perpetually charming as he was in the miniseries “Eleanor and Franklin”; Mamie never told Ike that their love had died as is shown in another miniseries, “Ike: The War Years”; Richard Nixon never called his wife “Buddy” as his character does in the feature film “Nixon.” David Shaw didn’t need these examples, however, to make an excellent case that the two disciplines must never be confused for one another.

Carl Anthony

Los Angeles