Try this test to determine if you are easily shocked: What two
anniversaries in Ronald Reagan’s life take place this week, each
involving one of the two women in his life?
The first, today, is the 50th anniversary of Ronald and Nancy
Reagan’s wedding. They were married March 4, 1952, in a quiet
ceremony in a small church in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley.
Actor William Holden and his wife, Ardis, were the best man and
matron of honor.
The second, taking place Friday, is the 19th anniversary of the
former president’s famous “Evil Empire” speech in 1983. At least
indirectly, another woman in his life was involved with the Evil
Empire speech. Read on.
Alzheimer’s Disease has robbed the 40th President of the United
States of the ability to enjoy his golden wedding anniversary with
elation, for the disease gradually takes away one’s memory. And
what memories the Reagans shared before his affliction! Their
journey took them through careers in film, television, politics,
and eight years each in the California Governor’s Office and the
White House. Their mutual devotion has been widely noted and
recorded. Nancy Reagan’s recent book, “I Love You Ronnie: The
Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan,” is unsurpassed in
conveying the warmth and depth of the love of this couple.
As anyone who has known them can attest, their love is constant
and genuine. Nancy Reagan has borne the difficult “long goodbye”
with grace and courage, and these days devotes her time to her
husband’s care.
One anecdote comes to mind to recall their happy days together.
Nancy Reagan once remarked that she thought the perfect marriage
proposal would be one made in a canoe while the woman sat back,
dabbling her fingers in the water. Her husband — then between his
governorship and the presidency — bought a canoe, named it “TRU
LUV” and launched it on Lake Lucky, the pond on their ranch north
of Santa Barbara. On their 25th wedding anniversary, in 1977, he
took Nancy for a spin in the canoe and repeated his original
proposal of marriage — while she dabbled her fingers in the
lake.
Yet there was “another woman” and he told his wife about her. On
July 3, 1986, as they flew in the presidential helicopter over New
York harbor, he said, “There’s the other woman in my life,”
pointing to the Statue of Liberty, which he was to rededicate that
night. “Lady Liberty” had been restored from top to bottom, after a
century. That night, just before he flipped the switch that relit
the statue, President Reagan said, “…our work can never be done
until every man, woman and child shares in our gift and our hope,
and stands with us in the light of liberty.”
That’s where “the other woman” comes into the Evil Empire
speech. Reagan was in Orlando, Florida, to address the annual
convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. The
conventioneers were to discuss proposals favoring a unilateral
“nuclear freeze,” an idea much liked by the American left (and
which quietly pleased the leaders of the Soviet Union). He urged
his audience not “to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive
impulses of an evil empire; to simply call the arms race a
misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle
between right and wrong and good and evil.”
What he called “the light of liberty” at the statue’s
rededication was a subtext of his strategy to bring an end to the
Cold War. It began with the enunciation of what came to be called
The Reagan Doctrine to the British parliament in 1982 (pledging
encouragement to dissidents and democratic movements in countries
behind the Iron Curtain). It moved on to the Strategic Defense
Initiative, the deployment of cruise missiles in Western Europe (to
checkmate mid-range Soviet missiles), and ultimately to the first
two summits with Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan knew that the Soviet
Union’s economy was being strained to the breaking point. If he
could force it right to the edge, some Soviet leader would
recognize the need to reduce, not expand arms. Gorbachev turned out
to be that man, and since then “the light of liberty” has shone in
many corners where there had been only the darkness of
totalitarianism.
Calling the Soviet Union’s vast holdings an “evil empire”
brought gasps of horror from many in the foreign policy
establishment, media pooh-bahs and academics. Men who had invested
their entire careers in Mutually Assured Destruction (“MAD” for
short) were certain that these words would destabilize the world.
Yet what Reagan said was what millions of ordinary people knew to
be true. Today there is wide agreement that Reagan’s honesty
contributed to the process of moving the Cold War toward its
culmination.
Just as Reagan’s “evil empire” comments brought a rain of
criticism on him, so, too, has President Bush’s “Axis of Evil”
comment in his State of the Union speech. Few people understood in
1983 how Reagan’s remarks fit into a purposeful and carefully
developed strategy whose seeds had been planted well before he
became president. Bush was criticized for not spelling out his
strategy; for not saying precisely what he would do about each of
the three countries named — Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Would you
telegraph your punches if you were in Bush’s shoes? Reagan didn’t
and Bush won’t. The pooh-bahs will simply have to bite their nails
and wait.
