BOOK REVIEW: ‘Reagan: His Life and Legend’

OPINION:

As Dorothy Parker once said: “This is not a novel to be lightly tossed aside. It should be thrown with great force.”

So it might also be said by some that Max Boot’s new book on President Ronald Reagan is being met with mixed reviews, much as the book “Dutch” by Edmund Morris was.

I recently listened to a 30-minute radio interview with Mr. Boot about the book. He got many things wrong about Reagan, including that the Hollywood studios pulled strings to keep Reagan out of combat in World War ll.

No evidence of this was presented in the interview. In the correspondence at the time, the military said Reagan “was not physically qualified for extended active duty as Visual Defects are beyond the minimal requirements laid down in the Army Regulations,”

So he did not see combat for the reasons Reagan himself said, not because of some nefarious deal. Reagan tried three times for active duty but was turned away because of poor eyesight; he could not make out a tank 7 feet from him.

And as Reagan biographer Paul Kengor told me, Reagan was already 31 years old, with dependents, by WWII. Not the profile of a man  being drafted for front-line duty. So he ended up making training and morale films for the military — including one that paid tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen.

Mr. Boot is a good writer, but a nonfiction author must be accurate; on this point, I have issues with this book. Mr. Boot also likes using first-person pronouns. One thing a historian must have is humility.

In the interview, he talked about the Ku Klux Klan marching in Dixon, Illinois, when Reagan was a child, as if Reagan had something to do with it.

A friend of mine, Paul Weyrich, coined the phrase “personnel is policy.” Virtually all the endorsements of Mr. Boot’s book are from liberals and establishmentarians, the type of people with whom Reagan would not have normally associated. This invites conservative suspicion.

That the New York Times or Washington Post could be the arbiter what constitutes the definitive biography of Reagan is absurd. The Post reviewer says the Reagan presidency was more style than substance.

Was bringing down an “evil empire” with thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us and millions enslaved just “style”? Was creating millions of jobs just “style”? Was eradicating President Jimmy Carter’s high inflation and interest rates just “style”?

The only thing these two newspapers know about is writing about “welfare queens,” which they did in the late 1970s. They spent much of their time bashing Reagan, endorsing Mr. Carter and Walter Mondale over him. They often lied about Reagan and editorialized in favor of the Soviets and against Reagan.

Reagan never used the term “welfare queen,” as has been alleged. There are also several glaring omissions, including failing to mention David Keene, an important player in Reagan’s 1976 campaign and a leader in the conservative movement. Mr. Boot does not mention the American Conservative Union and the role it played in Reagan’s comeback win in the critical North Carolina primary. Nor is Sen. Jesse Helms’ Congressional Club’s role in the 1976 and 1980 GOP primaries mentioned.

Mr. Boot falsely writes that Reagan never confronted apartheid in South Africa. He’s never heard of “constructive engagement”?

Apartheid started in 1948 under President Harry Truman, who never did anything about the racist policy. Nor did Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford or Mr. Carter. Apartheid was first confronted successfully under Reagan.

Mr. Boot passes judgment on Reagan’s faith. How a man prays or goes to church is his own business.

That the Soviets were failing economically and headed for the “ash heap of history” was joyous news during the Reagan presidency. And Reagan did not “end” the Cold War, as Mr. Boot falsely writes. He won it. Name a Soviet leader who willingly gave up power.

The Soviets gained ground against every American president but Reagan. He put his heel on Russia, applied pressure and crushed the life out of it.

When professionals embark on a book, they talk to people who have worked in those vineyards before. It’s Scholarship 101. But Mr. Boot never contacted Mr. Kengor, who has written several fine books about Reagan, including “The Crusader,” which became the basis for the movie “Reagan,” or Steven Hayward, author of the two-volume “The Age of Reagan.” Our friend Kiron Skinner also edited several books about Reagan’s writings and radio commentaries.

Curiously, Mr. Boot mentions other writers, including Rick Perlstein, but none of them are considered important Reagan scholars.

Mr. Boot writes that Reagan failed “to do more to fight HIV/AIDS.” Nonsense. As I wrote in “The Search for Reagan,” the president spoke out early and often as soon as AIDS became understood and then committed billions to research into the awful disease. He also appointed Dr. C. Everett Koop as surgeon general; Koop was an early hero in the fight against AIDS. He and Nancy Reagan later raised money for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Mr. Boot curiously criticizes Reagan because “early in Reagan’s presidency, his incendiary rhetoric against the ‘evil empire’ combined with a massive arms buildup and secret U.S. military provocations to test Soviet defenses.” It sounds better all the time.

Mr. Boot writes that Reagan’s first wife, Jane Wyman, may have tried to kill herself to get him to marry her — based only on hearsay.

Mr. Boot writes that Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis shunned the “unforgiving glare of the family’s spotlight.” Patti didn’t seem to mind the publicity when she posed nude for Playboy magazine. The magazine is never mentioned in the book, though the scandal  embarrassed the Reagans while in the White House.

Mr. Boot states that the Reagan campaign paid the New York Liberal Party to list independent candidate John Anderson on the ballot in 1980 instead of Jimmy Carter. I wrote the definitive book on the 1980 campaign, “Rendezvous With Destiny,” and I never encountered any material or witnesses attesting to this.

Mr. Boot’s effort often feels like a cut-and-paste job filled with rumors and hearsay.

• Craig Shirley has written six books about Ronald Reagan and has lectured often at the Reagan Library. He has also taught classes on Reagan at the University of Virginia and Reagan’s alma mater, Eureka College.

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Reagan: His Life and Legend

By Max Boot

Liveright, Sept. 10, 2024

880 pages, $36.99