When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan

I've read dozens of books by and about Mr Reagan, and this is the best written, most succinct of them all. He is unerringly portrayed as a real gentleman-statesman, kind to a fault. If you only read one book about The President, make it this one.

President Reagan was not a perfect person but he was a million times more honorable than the horrific leaders we have today. Biden should read it, but he wouldn't understand anymore than Pelosi who thinks it's Godly to kill babies.

Miss Noonan writes in a clear style about a subject that is clearly personal to her. This book goes into the mans core of what he believed & why. That is no small feat since President Reagan was an intensely private man. His character grew out of his own experiences & observations. The book starts with his humble origins, the problems his family faced moving from town to town because, his dad was an alcoholic. From there she takes the reader through his College years where he developed the habit of staying in shape, & then into his radio & acting days. Not surprisingly, after a time doing films for the military during WW2 he found his promising acting career had gone adrift. However, it was during this uncertain time that his interest in politics began. While President of the Screen Actors Guild, he learned how to negotiate with the tough studio heads, & saw some of his peers lured to Communism. Their secretive & subversive methods gave Mr.Reagan plenty of reason to pause. He spoke out, making numerous enemies in the process. Soon we go into his moving from films to television, which would lead him into Politics. This was when his core beliefs of less government, lower taxes, & his crusade against the spread of "world communism' came together. Once during a speech for Barry Goldwater he spoke of a "rendezvous with destiny" for those who would fight for our freedom: he asserted that the most important words in the Constitution are the ones that begin it: "WE THE PEOPLE..." It is soon clear that he felt strongly about states rights. He stated: "The Constitution they{the founding fathers} wrote established sovereign states, not mere administrative districts for the federal government. They believed in keeping government as close as possible to the people..." Miss Noonan then goes somewhat into his time in office, first as governor of California & then President. But, he was more than a politician. She delves into his self-deprecating humor{the "I forgot to duck, honey." reply he gave wife Nancy after he was shot by Hinckley} & the affection & high regard he had for the Secret Service agents who guarded him. All in all a very pleasant & informative read.

In Reykjavik Iceland in 1986, President Ronald Reagan walked away from a Soviet offer to eliminate ballistic missiles and other nuclear delivery systems coupled with strict verification processes because the USSR insisted on one thing: that Reagan give up his plans to research the Strategic Defense Initiative. During the 1970's and 1980's Reagan was the preeminent champion of the idea of looking into a system that would protect the United States missile attacks. The opposition was furious from both the Soviets and his domestic critics even though Reagan offered publicly to share the technology throughout the world. In the 1984 election, the Democrats ran commercials accusing Reagan of taking the arms race to space. In 1986, old and at the end of his career, he could have made a deal that would have been hailed the next day as historic, probably ensuring him a Nobel Peace Prize. He rejected the offer because he did not feel that it was in the best interests of the United States.He walked away from the table and both the USA and the USSR went on as before. Well, actually that's only half-right. The USSR was unable to keep up the military costs that it was trying to get out of at Reykjavik and quite literally went out of business in five years, throwing-off seventy years of totalitarianism. (In the decades ahead another former President, Jimmy Carter, got a Nobel Peace Prize for, among other initiatives, persuading the North Koreans to give up nuclear weapons development. Sure glad that worked out.)"When Character was King" by Peggy Noonan is a fine book that describes Reagan's personal development so typified at Reykjavik. Consider:1. Reagan's family of origin was the poorest of any modern American President. (Page 17)2. Reagan had the mind and background of an artist. His writings are only now being discovered in that his articles and radio-show scripts appear in his own handwriting. (Pages 38-39) (This got me to thinking. Much of President John F. Kennedy's reputation as an intellectual was based on his published writings. Maybe someday the Kennedy Library will show early drafts of "When England Slept" or "Profiles in Courage" in JFK's own hand. However, I doubt it.)3. Reagan's political skills, were honed at the bargaining table and in union meetings. (Pages 54 - 62)4. His turn toward conservatism was not opportunistic, but came at a time when the society was going in the opposite direction. (Page 85)5. In his professional life before politics, Reagan was much more of an entrepreneur than any modern President. (Page 164)6. The assassination attempt was a harrowing near-miss that changed his life. (Pages 167-181)There is honest criticism or Reagan in this book. Reagan's family problems and his role in Iran-Contra are not glossed over. But there is also the testimony of history. Just two examples:Natan Sharansky, a prisoner of the Soviets during the 1980's, and now a cabinet officer in Israel, refers to hearing about Reagan in the Gul

As a teacher, I am interested in the "character counts" initiative in New Jersey. We urge students to read two types of books, one on the basic philosophy behind "character counts", the other on the practical aspects of "character counts". I have been passing around Norman Thomas Remick's book, "West Point", to my students as the one for the basic understanding of what character is. After reading Ms. Noonan's wonderful book, "When Character Was King", I intend to obtain several to pass around to our students as a good one to read as a practical example of character in action. Who better to have our children mimic than a President of the United States? As the Remick book is surprisingly easy to understand, Ms. Noonan has done a similar service by writing in plain (though eloquent), clear language that everyone can understand. No matter what one's political leanings are, I'm sure they want to help our children. I believe "When Character Was King" is a book that will help to do that.

For devout Reaganites, Peggy Noonan's new book covers familiar ground. We're well acquainted with this quintessentially American success story, and with the deeply patriotic and moralistic ideals which underpinned RR's policies, particularly in the foreign policy sphere.Yet, what makes this book so special is Ms. Noonan's extraordinary gifts for storytelling. A measure of her formidable talents is her ability to take well-chronicled events -- the hardscrabble Illinois childhood, the SAG and GE years, the 1976 near miss, the PATCO strike, the assassination ordeal, Iran-Contra, the Iceland Summit, etc, etc -- and infuse them with fresh energy and perspective. As Ms. Noonan recounted RR's clear-eyed, strong-willed, visionary posture vis-a-vis the Soviets, I could not help but reflect on how those qualities have been sorely absent from U.S. foreign policy over the past decade -- and how urgently important they are right now. Indeed, the book's penultimate chapter is devoted to the lessons George W. Bush absorbed from nearly a decade of watching RR. "When Character is King" advances Peggy Noonan's reputation as one of the finest political writers of her generation. A worthy successor to the memoir of her years in the Reagan White House: "What I Saw at the Revolution."