More from The Reagan Diaries, edited by Douglas Brinkley, which I'm studying carefully (I remember all this stuff--I was in college). Let's see. Again, Reagan always gave the impression publicly that he was committed to tax-cutting--and he was privately, too. April 26, 1982: "A budget meeting--tomorrow the gang goes back at it with the Demos tomorrow. I felt they were tiring a bit and the Demos are holding out for more concessions. The D's are playing games--they want me to rescind the 3rd yr. of the tax cut--Not in a million years!"
Reagan could be tough; and he was smarter than people gave him credit for being. One way to see this is to look at one's ability to boil down complex issues. Reagan could. For example, later in 1982 he wasn't sorry to his first Secretary of State, Al Haig, resign. Haig constantly complained about others in the administration undercutting him. Reagan dismissed this as paranoia. Finally Haig resigned and Reagan accepted it. On June 25, 1982, Reagan watched Haig give his public statement on his resignation: "He gave only one reason and did say there was a disagreement on foreign policy. Actually the only disagreement was over whether I made policy or the Sec. of State did." On another occasion (August 10, 1982), an old conservative supporter, Richard Viguerie, wrote him in supposed "sorrow" on how in the minds of some on the Right, Reagan wasn't being conservative enough. "He used crocodile tears for ink," Reagan mused. On March 16, 1983 an elderly, retired former leader of Lebanon visited Reagan in the White House and lauded him for not retreating in his attempts to get foreign troops out of his country. "I told him I didn't have any reverse gear," Reagan wrote later.
Reagan loved to watch movies in the evenings; sometimes they were old westerns, but usually they were the latest big releases from Hollywood. He thought "9 to 5" was funny but didn't like the scene where Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin were all smoking pot--he thought it glorified drug usage. He looked forward to seeing "E.T." He thought (August 13, 1982) that "An Officer and a Gentleman" was "good", but was "spoiled by language, nudity and sex."
Reagan never indicated this publicly, but privately he could be very critical of his fellow Republicans. On December 7, 1982, the administration lost a key vote in the House on the MX missile (for which Reagan wanted funding) on which 50 Republicans defected to the anti-MX side. "We had rabbits when we needed tigers," Reagan wrote dejectedly. On April 7, 1983, Reagan called the ranking Republican senator on the Senate Budget Committee, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, to urge him to hold off for a few days on voting on the defense budget allocation, which faced a crucial vote before the committee. Reagan wanted more time to discuss a more "reasonable proposal." "He refused & I got mad," Reagan then wrote. "These supposed to be Republicans went ahead and cut in half the increase we'd asked for. The Russians must be very happy tonite."
But at the time, we never knew this. Reagan kept all this kind of stuff in-house (and I suspect quickly got over it).
More often he blasted the Democratic opposition--on February 25, 1983, he called them "Demagogs."
More in coming days...
