Last Gasp of the Intelligentsia
Lots of people are complaining that Edmund Morris is a biographer who likes
to make things up. In his new biography of Reagan, Morris has invented not just
one but several characters who interact with Reagan at various stages in his
life. Isn't this ironic? Reagan himself was accused throughout his career of
failing to distinguish between fact and fiction. Yet I think Morris' technique
can be defended if it helps us understand Reagan better. Unfortunately, it does
not.
As a Reagan biographer myself, I can testify that Morris is right: Reagan
was a complex, mysterious man. Many Americans who saw him on television every
day thought they understood him, but they kept forgetting that he was an actor.
A C-student who graduated from Eureka College, Reagan was in many respects an
ordinary man. Yet extraordinary things happened in the 1980s: the taming of
inflation, the revival of economic growth, the technological revolution, the
beginning of the end of the Cold War.
So did Reagan do these things? And if he did, how did such an ordinary
fellow perform such extraordinary feats? Morris' biography contributes little
to our understanding of this large issue. He gives Reagan credit for his force
of will, but he does not credit Reagan's force of intellect. Reflecting the
prejudices of the intelligentsia, Morris in his book and in interviews has
described Reagan as "ignorant," an "airhead," and a "yahoo."
Yet it was this very yahoo who in the early 1980s repeatedly predicted the
fall of communism. He did this at a time when there was complete agreement
among the sophisticated class--Republican and Democrat, hawk and dove,
conservative and liberal--that the Soviet empire was permanent. So how did
Reagan know something about the vulnerability of Soviet communism that all the
learned pundits, including the entire Soviet Studies community, did not know?
Morris' 800 pages brings you no closer to understanding why, on this immensely
important question, the wise men proved to be wrong and the dummy proved to be
right.
Here's another question. Why did the computer revolution occur in the 1980s?
Why didn't it happen in the 1970s? Reagan is no more responsible for inventing
the Internet than Al Gore. But is it possible that Reagan's policies such as
the tax cuts, deregulation, privatization of government assets, and the
celebration of the entrepreneur as the true American hero, created the
necessary political and social framework for the silicon revolution? Many
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs I've spoken to say that without Reagan the
computer revolution may have happened, but it wouldn't have happened as fast as
it did. So what does Morris think about this? Nothing. It's not that he adopts
a position I disagree with. He seems unaware that this is an important subject
of debate. In the sphere of politics, it is Morris, not Reagan, who comes
across looking like an ignoramus.
Unable to fathom Reagan's public accomplishments, Morris focuses on his
personal life. Even here there are no big revelations. Morris speculates that
Reagan married his first wife, Jane Wyman, because she threatened to commit
suicide if he didn't. But the source for this turns out to be Reagan's second
wife, Nancy Reagan. All we can learn from this episode is that second wives
don't like to think that their husbands wanted to marry their first wives.
Morris also makes much of the fact that Reagan in the mid-'30s considered
joining the Communist Party but was turned down because they regarded him as a
"flake." Does this prove that Reagan was a lightweight? On the contrary, it
reveals that the Commies were even more inept than previously thought. Reagan
would have been an unbelievably good catch, and if he had stayed with this
sorry lot, he would have been their best chance to win mainstream
acceptability.
Morris' failure is symptomatic of the failure of the intelligentsia in this
country to comprehend Reagan. Perhaps it also reflects an attempt to avenge
Reagan's rout of the intellectual class. We are now living in the world that
Reagan made, a world in which entrepreneurs and not intellectuals are directing
the nation's future. So will Morris have the last word on Reagan's legacy? In
the words of one of Tom Wolfe's characters, fuhgetaboutit . History
will remember Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the 20 th
century. (The other was FDR.) He will be cherished as the man who won the Cold
War and revived the American economy and the American spirit. Morris' book will
be a footnote.
