Recent Reagan Movie Well Worth the Watch

From the days of my youth, I recall with great fondness the presidency of President Ronald Reagan.  Full disclosure—my brother Tom was working on the White House Staff at the time, and I was attending The Heights Preparatory School in Potomac, Maryland.  So, on the weekends, I rode the Metro down to D.C. to meet my brother at the White House where we would often remain in his office late on Saturday nights as he wrapped up his work for the week.  

I clearly remember Pres. Reagan’s unbounded optimism about America and its place in the world, his strong domestic record including record employment and an economy exploding with growth, his focus on the traditional family unit and the conservative social values that were its foundation, and his view of the need for America to be militarily strong.

It is with that background that I saw the Reagan biographical drama last week starring Dennis Quaid who I felt fairly captured the late president better than I thought he might.

Without giving away too much, let me simply say that the movie reminds us of the historic events that took place during the Reagan presidency, with three caveats: 1). Much of Reagan’s life prior to his presidency, including his youth, is prominently included in the film affording the viewer a much fuller sense of him. 2). Quite interestingly, I thought, the story is told from the standpoint of a KGB agent in the former Soviet Union.  3). President Reagan’s unshakable faith in God not only provided the prism by which and through he viewed the evils of communism, but it anchored his life as a whole and influenced his view of the Soviet Union which he accurately referred to as ‘The Evil Empire.’

President Reagan’s two terms were from 1980-1988 and in those 8 years he confronted many tumultuous occurrences at home and across the world.  President Reagan won the presidency in a landslide due to his contagious hopefulness about America’s future that stood in stark contrast to the perception of American weakness on the international stage, malaise, and the economic turmoil we experienced during the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

The turmoil notably included the nuclear ambitions of the former Soviet Union and how Pres. Reagan understood that the way to break and end the Soviet nuclear threat was first to simply outspend that nation in the military and defense race and, secondly, to devise a way to not solely rely on an offensive nuclear response to an attack upon the United States but to also devise a way to block—shoot down—nuclear weapons before they reached our country.  President Reagan wisely concluded that in the nuclear age the traditional deterrence strategy of ‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD) was, in fact, insane and amounted to a global suicide pact between the United States and the Soviet Union.  

As a result, President Reagan launched an initiative that became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and it was based upon his recognition that the most effective strategy against the former Soviet Union’s ever-increasing number and capacity of ballistic missiles was to develop a technology by which such missiles could be shot down from space.  While the U.S. has never created a space-based system, the same technology developed because of that initiative has been stunningly successful.  (I note again that the individual who saved Israel several months ago from direct attack by Iran was President Reagan based upon this SDI technology).

Perhaps more than anything, the movie reminded me of the critical importance of strong and decisive American leadership. 

Recall that Iran released the American hostages as soon as Pres. Reagan took the oath of office.  In fact, the plane carrying the 52 American hostages who had been held by the Iran Revolutionary Guard for 444 days cleared out of Iranian airspace only minutes after President Reagan took the Oath of Office and during his Inaugural Speech.  The Ayatollah clearly didn’t want to test what a bold and fearless American president would do without the immediate release of those hostages. 

That is the example of leadership our country desperately needs—Peace Through Strength.  Like millions of Americans, I am grateful for the strength and character of President Reagan and comforted to be reminded of it.  Such leadership not only stabilizes the United States, it also returns order to the world.