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Who he was
What is there original left for anybody to say
about the great man who last weekend dismounted
from life after a ride that took him from humble origins to the heights of power and fame and finally into the shades of a dark disease?
The chattering klatches in the press had said it all, and even more, an hour after the announcement of President Ronald Reagan’s demise. They reminded us of his Great Communicator status, how he Beat the Soviet Union, how he Changed the Republican Party, and Made America Proud again.
His greatness of course resides in the minds and private reminiscences of anyone whose lives he touched. These may be quieter, less informed memories, and more valuable for their nature.
We recall two images of President Reagan.
One sees him standing on the steps of a small wooden meeting house near the windblown shores of an isolated outpost in Iceland; beside him was Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in a dark overcoat. The two men had sent their worried minions scurrying while they had a private talk, leader to leader, inside the humble building.
They emerged on those steps and what had transpired inside was nothing less than astonishing: on their own they had decided to break up and destroy their individual nuclear stockpiles. And they announced as much for the whole world to hear.
The national security establishments and the military shuddered and whined that this could not be. How could a leader on his own accord just do something like that?
Reagan did. He did not “win” the Cold War. He and Gorbachev brought about a peaceful dawn after a long, horrid nuclear night, and the world was forever altered for the good. It may have been the most profound historical moment in the life of anybody alive today.
The choice came out of a man. Not just a male of a certain age, but a man who knew himself, displayed simply no ego, and who knew his own mind, right from wrong, and did not hide behind polls and advisers and surrogates.
He is remembered as the last man, reminiscent, we suppose, of the kinds of men our Founding Fathers probably were. He showed no signs of arrested development, as two of his three successors did — Clinton with his “that woman” high jinks, and Bush with his chip-on-the-shoulder that bespeaks an immaturity which almost surely would have dismayed and amused Reagan the man. *
Ronald Reagan knew who he was, knew what a president should do, and he did it. His kind does- ' n’t come around often. What we should recall more than the particulars was how lucky we were to have had him.
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