Single Success Presidents
O'NEILL, WILLLAM L.
Single Success Presidents Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader By Dinesh D'Souza Free Press. 292 pp. $25.00. George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee By...
...on the second occasion he bailed out of his burning plane and was the only survivor of its three-man crew...
...King Fahd told the Crown Prince that the international coalition's help had to be accepted...
...With Herbert Parmet's George Bush we are on firmer ground...
...As president of the Screen Actors Guild he may have been...
...Granted, these resulted in huge deficits, but despite his pre-election statements, the ballooning debt did not trouble him...
...Historians will be arguing for a long time about the degree to which Reagan's policies ended the Cold War...
...Our Churchill," he calls him, putting him up there with the greats...
...The amount of diplomatic skill that was required in dealing with him is far from clear, and so is exactly what Reagan accomplished as a negotiator...
...576pp...
...And, to be sure, he will be remembered for reacting appropriately to Gorbachev, the one great achievement of his Administration...
...since he held the office for four terms he must have stood up to the autocratic studio heads of that era, or the Guild members would not have re-elected him...
...Nevertheless, history will have to give him credit for his response to the opening Gorbachev presented...
...Reagan may not have created it with his costly anti-Soviet policies, as the author believes, but he reacted sensibly —going against many of his conservative aides and supporters who thought détente was merely another Soviet trick...
...Hardly anyone expected the USSR to throw in the towel and then disappear almost overnight...
...I think I'm a good judge of acting," he once said in speaking of Gorbachev...
...Parmet establishes that Bush realized immediately Kuwait had to be liberated...
...It seems safe to say, though, that history will not regard him as the wonder-working sage and seer who remade America and the world in eight short years, as the worshipful D'Souza would have it...
...In other words, it is weakly documented and much has to be taken on faith—far too much, in my opinion...
...His preppy upbringing in Connecticut gave him the good manners and considerateness that would be valuable assets for a politician...
...Bush's most controversial Gulf War decision—to stop the ground fighting after a hundred hours, with the Iraqis out of Kuwait but with dictator Saddam Hussein's forces and power largely intact— was to my mind his wisest move...
...He did that in part because the slaughter of the fleeing Iraqis was a terrible thing and looked it on television...
...Both sides could be right in part...
...Dinesh D' Souza's excessive claims notwithstanding, his deceptively diverting work shows the same is true of Ronald Reagan...
...After the studios," Reagan said in 1988, "Gorbachev was a snap...
...The conflicting impressions of Reagan by people who knew him pose a puzzle that has yet to be solved...
...This book relies heavily on word of mouth, interviews, conversations, anecdotes, and the like...
...We'll do it...
...Yet his main reason had to have been that destroying Iraq would have also meant destroying the balance of power in the region...
...He could not have been more on the mark...
...He was his own man, D' Souza argues, not a puppet of others as has sometimes been charged...
...I do not share D'Souza's high opinion of our 40th President...
...Unlike Reagan, he was an Easterner by birth and bearing, an expert on foreign affairs, knew how Washington worked, and had a wealth of friends and contacts around the world...
...From its small deck he made 116 takeoffs and landings as pilot of a torpedo bomber, 5 8 of them combat missions...
...D'Souza is most useful for his descriptions of Reagan's personality and private life...
...When the Soviet Union crashed, no one was less surprised than Reagan...
...They waited, and today there is no Kuwait...
...At the conclusion of the Gulf War in February 1991, Bush enjoyed stunningly high approval ratings that he soon lost through inaction at home...
...He kept a nine-to-five schedule, once remarking that he knew hard work never killed a man but was in no hurry to prove it...
...At home Reagan got the income tax cuts he wanted, and the massive arms buildup...
...I don't think he's acting...
...Our troops might still be there were it not for Bush...
...But people did not believe him, because the benefits had not yet trickled down...
...He knew better instinctively, we are told, and, relying on his gut again, took the Soviet leader's measure...
...This is D'Souza's view, and there may be something to it...
...That is true to some extent...
...32.50...
...So much for his lack of valor...
...He lost two Senate races, then won election to the House, serving two terms beginning in 1967...
...Despite his having been called a wimp, he was no such thing...
...On the other hand, many of his former aides are on record as saying that Reagan appeared to have little interest in, or knowledge of, many important issues...
...The economy was coming out of a recession in 1992 at just about the time he had to run again, and he pointed this out...
...Otherwise, Bush had no serious liabilities as Ronald Reagan's hand-picked successor, and—with the help of Willie Horton— easily defeated Michael Dukakis in 1988...
...He has fun with some of the President's critics, who are on record as having repeatedly said the Soviet Union was thriving, in some instances as late as 1989...
...That may have been his intent—as Senator Daniel P. Moynihan believes—or possibly incidental to his larger goals...
...Look at what happened to the Kuwaitis," he said...
...author, "A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home andAbroadin World War II" Dinesh D'Souza, a conservative author whose two previous books include Illiberal Education (1991), a survey of political correctness in academia, has written an often entertaining account of Ronald Reagan's Presidency...
...To Americans, who are given to moral and legal rationales when it comes to power politics, that is an extremely hard idea to sell...
...Yet he will get some, and it will be interesting to see if Reagan turns out to be deemed as good a negotiator as the author thinks...
...Of course, he had the advantage of momentum, because the United States had begun to drift in that direction with Richard M. Nixon's Presidency...
...He enlisted in the Navy straight out of Andover when he had just turned 18...
...Parmet is a well known presidential historian and has found out a great deal about Bush...
...After that came marriage, a Yale education, and Texas, where Bush made a small fortune in the oil patch before going into politics...
...There were numerous analyses however—indeed, many of them appeared in these pages—that pointed out the decline of Soviet living standards and showed the USSR's other intractable problems to be getting worse...
...Later he tried to minimize his connection with the secret exchange of missiles for hostages, but Parmet is certain that Bush played a "key role" in at least one aspect of it...
...The first time he ditched successfully...
...Yes," the King responded, "they're all living in our hotel rooms...
...Not that he means to amuse, but one has to laugh when he explains how every good thing that happened in the 1980s directly resulted from Reagan's amazing foresight and indomitable will...
...Even the appearance of activity might have helped him...
...Abdallah insisted there was still a Kuwait...
...As Vice President he worked hard, was loyal to a fault, and seems to have kept his nose clean—except for the Iran-contra affair...
...While some concern existed that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia might prefer an "Arab solution" to the crisis, there was small chance of that...
...He was subsequently appointed to a string of positions—ambassador to the UN, chairman of the Republican National Committee, ambassador to China, CIA director...
...In defense of his unlikely thesis, D'Souza makes the following case...
...Reviewed by William L. O'Neill Professor of history, Rutgers...
...In 1980 he challenged Ronald Reagan in the primaries, memorably condemning his opponent's "voodoo economics," only to accept the Vice Presidential nomination and eat his words...
...Whatever the case, Reagan will get the praise, or the blame, for the deficits, as will the Democrats in Congress who went along with him...
...He was shot down twice...
...Like many Presidents, he was inclined to take things easy...
...He is most likely to be remembered for the Gulf War...
...Then he turned to Cheney and said in English, "Okay...
...Abroad he presided over the Cold War's end, brought about by his rearmament program thatthe Kremlin couldnot match, and by contesting every move the USSR made anywhere in the world...
...He got away with this, D'Souza claims, because he was sharply focused on major policy questions and had an excellent memory...
...Bush served on the carrier San Jacinto, a converted light cruiser with room for only 33 planes...
...Thus it was the "wise men" who were wrong, and the "dummy," as Reagan's enemies represented him, who was right...
...The astonishing thing was not that it fell apart, but the abruptness of its demise and the relative lack of violence...
...Upon his graduation from flight school in 1943, he was the youngest commissioned officer in the USN...
...As it was Bill Clinton, aided by one of the worst Republican campaigns in memory and a strong third-party showing by Ross Perot, won the contest with only 43 per cent of the vote...
...In short, he was lucky—as we all were...
...Bush was a smart choice...
...As Herbert Parmet's impressive performance demonstrates, George Bush accomplished one big thing...
...None are likely to go as far as D'Souza in giving him all of the credit...
...Reagan was right almost by accident, for he understood very little about Communism or the Soviet Union...
...although courteous to his various aides, he used them for his own purposes and forgot about them when they were gone...
...With Iran as the sole remaining state possessing both the means and will to cause trouble, the U. S. would have had no choice but to occupy and rearm Iraq...
...At a guess, Reagan will be remembered for wanting to move this country to the Right, and doing so...
...Perhaps he was, but Mikhail S. Gorbachev also had huge problems and a weak hand...
...He just felt in his gut thatthe "evil empire," being an abomination to nature, would cave if he kept the pressure on...
...Who'll put us up...
...But given his career-long fear of leaks, he remained silent until the plans took shape...
...Parmet recounts an amusing exchange between the King and Crown Prince Abdallah in the presence of the American Ambassador, who spoke Arabic, and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney...
...Although Bush had the good fortune to be President when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union imploded, he was not responsible for those epochal events...
...Reagan's huge budget deficits will be remembered, too, for ruling out any major domestic initiatives...
...George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee By Herbert S. Parmet Scribner...
...He had no close friends...
...Nonetheless, the fact is that with Iran and Iraq being more or less equal in strength, the United States—through Saudi Arabia and the Emirates—now holds the balance of power in the Gulf, a strategically attractive position...
Vol. 80 • December 1997 • No. 19
