Making things happen
... with integrity
Monday June 7, 2004 Volume VI Number 23
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Dodging a Bullet by Ken Kemp |
was a wide-eyed student at UCLA fresh out of Bible school when Ronald Reagan was governor of our state.
At the time (1969-1971) and on that campus, Mr. Reagan was despised and scorned and the subject of regular derision in the student newspaper, the Daily Bruin. He was hopelessly out-of-touch they wrote: a prototypical ESTABLISHMENT politician with corrupt loyalties to the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX whose concept of patriotism was in fact IMPERIALISM and a sinister guise for the rank EXPLOITATION of the poor. The Governor of California was the arch enemy of DIVERSITY and ACADEMIC FREEDOM and his policies must be PROTESTED.
Which they were.
We weren’t quite as radical as Cal Berkeley over there at UCLA, but we worked hard to keep up. Reagan had the audacity to announce from the Governor’s office that students should attend class and complete their assignments and pay their tuition to get course credits. But many student organizations believed otherwise. They shouted passionately through hand held megaphones that things were so bad what with the war raging in Vietnam and the Bank of America conspiring with the government to advance capitalism; student strikes were quite in order. How can a moral person of integrity attend class and turn in assignments and participate in a system that warms the globe, consumes finite resources, interferes in the policies of sovereign nations and lights the fuse on the population bomb?
Reagan’s
greatest offense though, for us students in California’s flagship university
system, was his mandated tuition increase. When the cost went from three
hundred dollars to a staggering three hundred eighty dollars per
quarter, a change initiated by the Governor and signed off by a majority of
legislators, well, my fellow students hit the streets, burning down the
Westwood B of A just to send a message to Sacramento.
We showed them who they were messin’ with.
(There’s a whole new generation now who looks back at those days and considers them silly. Old school. All they really see in those fading photographs are the bell-bottom trousers and flower print, big collared shirts and leisure suits and really big hair. They wonder who in their right mind would ever leave the house looking like that?)
So in 1979 when Governor Reagan announced that he would run for the Republican nomination and go on to challenge Jimmy Carter for President, we just didn’t believe it was possible. Richard Nixon, we thought, pretty well destroyed the conservative cause. Single-handedly. The awful end to the war in Southeast Asia and then the embarrassing demise of the Nixon administration left the nation in such disarray that a run for the Presidency by the former actor, an anti-communist turned governor seemed just plain impossible. His support for the war-mongering (so they said) Barry Goldwater in 1964 pegged him as an irresponsible hawk in this nuclear age, many believed. They feared this man would get us into a nuclear war that would vaporize planet Earth.
Besides, Carter was an incumbent. He had that distinct advantage.
But Ronald Reagan surprised the nation. He won by a landslide – just like he won two terms as Governor.
And this weekend, on the occasion of his passing, a grieving nation celebrates Reagan as one of the greatest and most loved Presidents of the Century. Maybe in history.
* * * * * *
Wasn’t he an actor? Don’t actors get paid to fake it?
People could see the undeniable connectedness between the President and the people. But some wondered if he could be trusted.
Shortly after Reagan took office, Iranians holding American hostages in Tehran buckled. They later confessed that it was Reagan’s tough approach to foreign policy that broke the stalemate under Jimmy Carter’s watch. They released those hostages unharmed to the delight of the world, especially the American families who feared the worst.
And then, just a few months after Reagan took office, he left a Washington hotel after giving a speech. A crowd waited outside, hoping for a glimpse of the new President.
As
Reagan approached his car at the curb, gunshots rang out. As video cameras
captured the scene, John Hinckley, Jr. fired six rounds from this illegally
purchased Rohm R6-14 revolver. Four victims were hit in the few seconds it
took to empty the gun. Press Secretary James Brady was hit in the left
temple. Officer Thomas Delahanty in the neck. Security Agent Timothy J.
McCarthy in the stomach. Reagan was pushed into the back seat of his
limousine, and the driver was told to return to the White House. But on the
way, blood on Reagan’s white shirt was the first evidence that the President
himself also took a hit. The driver was immediately re-directed to a nearby
emergency room.
The nation held its breath. Memories of another President, struck by an assassin, still fresh in the collective national consciousness, brought a watching world back to the television screen for word of his condition.
Quick reports quieted those terrible fears. Reagan was in good condition, good spirits, with surprising good humor. While the people sighed in relief, the world didn’t really know how close the bullet came to the new President’s heart. It was revealed later.
Think
about it. The Presidency went through nearly twenty years of darkness after
the Kennedy assassination. It was the end of Camelot. Johnson’s Presidency
ended in disillusionment of the Vietnam war. Nixon’s in the tangle of
Watergate. Ford only occupied the office for a short time after the Nixon
resignation and was soundly defeated by Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer, who
was never accepted by the Washington establishment, and nearly lost the
democratic nomination to Ted Kennedy when he ran for a second term. Then in
the final 1980 campaign, Carter, the incumbent, was soundly defeated by Reagan.
Something happened to the Presidency when Reagan emerged from that hospital room recovering from the bullet wound in the assassination attempt. Reagan was sixty-nine years old. Not only did his personal political standing sky-rocket – the Presidency itself was re-affirmed by all the people.
It had been a long dark spell. Cynicism, pessimism, sarcasm all dissipated in the sunny optimism and strength of the man who nearly lost his life.
Reagan dodged a bullet. But so did the Oval Office.
Reagan emerged a leader. He took on the Air Traffic controllers. He took on the Soviet Union. He took on the Congress. He believed in the peoples’ ability to build the economy. He spoke about the need for government to get out of the way. He talked about the longing for liberty. Negotiating from strength. A shining city on a hill.
When the Challenger went down, he comforted a grieving nation.
When the country celebrated two hundred years of independence, he articulated the achievement and cast a vision for the future.
When the country marked the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy on the bluff at Omaha Beach, he spoke for the world in tribute to those fallen heroes.
Is it just me, or do you notice a change in the tone of political discourse now that the world is remembering Ronald Reagan?
* * * * * * *
Our
daughter called me with the news. Candy knew I would be interested in this
story. I was driving across town after a men’s morning conference with a
couple of friends.
“Dad, did you hear?” Candy asked as I picked up the cell.
“What, honey?” By my response, she knew she would be the one to bring me the news.
“Ronald Reagan died this afternoon.”
“Wow. No, I didn’t know.”
“I think you’ll want to write about him in your LeaderFOCUS this week,” she said.
She got it right.
* * * * * * *
When we visited the Reagan library a short time ago (LF July 14, 2003 :The Gipper), we knew that Reagan’s time was short. But we also knew his legacy loomed large.
Perhaps the greatest tribute of all is to see how, ten years after his high profile and warm farewell to America, his memory seems to quiet the shrill discourse we’ve come to accept as the expected order of things.
We all long for the days of good natured debate that do not require character assassination.
I wonder how long it will last. I fear not long.
* * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
We’ll be hearing more about Reagan. I believe the nation will spend the week remembering, and wishing somehow the character and charm and good natured optimism of the “Great Communicator” will somehow, someday be reborn in the country we love. The love affair between Nancy and Ronny will inspire others to invest in the same.
How might history have changed had Hinckley’s bullet penetrated an inch higher, and taken President Reagan’s life on that gray day in March of 1981?
This was the same bombastic governor my classmates despised back in those college days nearly forty years ago. What happened? He was a strong man of principle then, and he remained so throughout his career. Somehow that strength of character survived, and stood the test on a global stage.
People said that Reagan was a man comfortable in his own skin. My friend Mike tells me that before his illness got the best of him, after he left Washington and moved to California, Ronny and Nancy were regulars at Bel Aire Presbyterian Church on Sunday mornings.
There’s something simple and good-hearted about a quintessential American. A President ought to be that.
There will be a memorial service in the National Cathedral. We know little now about the details, but the world will be watching.
From France, President George W. Bush blinked back tears as he said: "He always told us that for America - the best is yet to come. We comfort ourselves in the knowledge that this is true for him too. His work is done.”
He took a deep breath, and then completed the thought.
“And now a shining city awaits him."
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004
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