WEBVTT

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You know,
I received an invitation

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that said, "Please come
to Ellis Island July 4

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"for the hundredth
birthday celebration

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of an American institution."

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Somebody goofed-- my birthday
isn't until February.

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♪ ♪

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NARRATOR:
On July 4, 1986,

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as he lit a refurbished
Statue of Liberty,

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Ronald Reagan was at
the height of his prestige.

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Many wondered which American
icon was being celebrated.

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(orchestra playing intro
to "America the Beautiful")

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REAGAN:
Tonight we pledge ourselves
to each other

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and to the cause
of human freedom--

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a cause that has given light to
this land and hope to the world.

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(crowd applauding)

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CHORUS:
♪ O beautiful
for spacious skies... ♪

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NARRATOR:
Ronald Reagan saw America
as a special place,

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a shining city on a hill,
set by God between two oceans

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as a beacon of freedom
to the rest of the world.

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Reagan is brilliant

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at creating a kind of
rapport with the country,

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appealing to its better angels,

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appealing
to the native optimism,

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which is so much a part of
our culture and our tradition.

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♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪

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♪ And crown thy good
with brotherhood... ♪

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MAN:
When he was asked,
on the eve of his election,

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"What is it, Governor,
that people see in you?"

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And Reagan responds,
"Would you laugh if I told you

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that they look at me
and they see themselves?"

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WOMAN:
And I didn't understand

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why people had
this adulation for him.

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I thought he could
possibly press the button.

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Yeah.

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I was terrified.

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(crowd cheering)

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MAN:
If you seek his monument, look
around at what you don't see.

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You don't see the Berlin Wall.

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You don't see the Iron Curtain
from Stettin to Trieste.

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NARRATOR:
He was America's most
ideological president

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in his rhetoric,

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yet pragmatic in his actions.

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He believed in balanced budgets,
but never submitted one.

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He hated nuclear weapons,
but built them by the thousands.

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He would write checks
to a poor person

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as he cut the benefits of many.

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He united the country
with renewed patriotism,

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but his vision of America
alienated millions.

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He preached family values,

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but presided over
a dysfunctional family.

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You're not going
to figure him out.

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That's the first thing
you need to know.

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I don't think he's
figured himself out.

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I haven't figured him out.

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I don't know anybody
who has figured him out.

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There is this mystery about
Reagan that pervades everything,

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which is, how much was he
aware of what he was doing?

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NARRATOR:
Inattentive to detail
and often disengaged,

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Reagan led a revolution
based on a few simple ideals--

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to free Americans
from big government

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and the world from
communist oppression.

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MAN:
Before Reagan,

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every Western leader had

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the same strategic objective
regarding the Soviet Union,

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which is to not lose.

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Reagan came in and he said,

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"I don't want to play to not
lose; I want to play to win."

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MAN:
He's tough.

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He braces to talk to you.

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It's confrontational.

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Not unpleasant,
but confrontational.

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MAN:
I often think of him as
a nice, soft, silky pillow,

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and you could touch it
and feel it, it was very nice.

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But if you decided,
well, let's take a hard punch

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and you hit it hard,

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you would find in the middle
a solid-steel tempered bar.

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That was the real Ronald Reagan.

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That was the essence of Reagan.

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(crowd cheering)

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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NARRATOR:
As president,
Ronald Reagan evoked

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a simpler place
and a simpler time.

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(crowd cheering)

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♪ ♪

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Small towns, patriotic values,
family, and community.

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An idealized America

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that no longer was,
that perhaps never was...

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Even for Ronald Reagan.

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He was born in 1911

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on the main and only street
of Tampico, Illinois,

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in circumstances so poor

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that years later,
while visiting his birthplace,

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he visibly recoiled.

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His father, Jack,

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was a shoe salesman
with a taste for whiskey

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who spent his life
in search of his big break.

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From age four, Dutch--
as his parents called him--

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lived the life of a gypsy.

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Every year a new town...

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new neighbors...

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friends left behind.

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Dutch had nowhere to go,
except within.

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MAN:
Always in childhood,
you will see this distance.

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In a group
of small-town schoolchildren,

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little Ronnie will
always be sitting

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with his face on his left hand--

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a remote little boy

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who somehow held himself
aloof from everybody else.

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He carried this... distance,
this remoteness, this aloofness

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right through.

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On the one hand,

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he's one of the warmest,
most amiable, gentlemanly,

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kindest people
you'd ever want to meet.

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And yet he has
almost no close friends.

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I mean, really, in fact,
no close friends.

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♪ ♪

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NARRATOR:
Reagan would rarely speak
of the pain of his childhood.

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He would recall it

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as "one of those rare
Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer idylls.

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"There were woods and mysteries,

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"life and death among the small
creatures, hunting and fishing;

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"those were the days

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when I learned
the real riches of rags."

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MAN:
I think it's that kind

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of willful optimism
in the face of reality

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as experienced
and defined by others

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that tells you a lot
about Ronald Reagan

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and perhaps even is one clue
to understanding his presidency.

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NARRATOR:
Dutch was nine years old

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when the family finally
settled in Dixon, Illinois.

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A town of 8,000,

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Dixon was the essence
of "Main Street" America.

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Reagan would remember it
as "a small universe

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"where I learned standards
and values that would guide me

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for the rest of my life."

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MAN:
It was the era
of Calvin Coolidge's presidency.

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Values that Coolidge espoused

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were small-town, churchgoing...
rugged individualism,

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the old 19th-century values
of America.

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It's a time when Americans
are particularly drawn

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to this small-town world,
because it's beginning to pass.

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It's beginning to be eclipsed
by the rise of American cities.

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NARRATOR:
The 1920s were a time of change
and opportunity,

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even for the unpredictable Jack.

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He opened his own shoe store,
the Fashion Boot Shop,

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which became a popular spot
in downtown Dixon.

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MORRIS:
His father loved
to tell stories,

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stand outside his store

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and schmooze with
whoever walked past.

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In fact, Reagan said

09:07.313 --> 09:10.816 align:left position:15% line:83% size:75%
that his father was the best
storyteller he ever knew.

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NARRATOR:
Jack had a weakness
Dutch had long known about

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but never confronted.

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"I was 11 years old
the first time I came home

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"to find my father flat on
his back on the front porch.

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"He was drunk,
dead to the world,

09:32.471 --> 09:36.042 align:left position:30% line:83% size:60%
"his hair soaked
with melting snow.

09:36.075 --> 09:40.947 align:left position:17.5% line:83% size:72.5%
"I bent over him, smelling
the sharp odor of whiskey.

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I managed to drag him inside
and get him to bed."

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DALLEK:
One of the threads I see running
through Ronald Reagan's career

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is a great attraction
to autonomy, to independence,

09:56.028 --> 09:57.496 align:left position:35% line:89% size:55%
to freedom.

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And I think a lot of this was
a reaction against the fact

10:01.367 --> 10:04.704 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70%
that his father had this
dependency on a substance

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and that he couldn't
control himself.

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He would never say anything
negative about his father,

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but the moral disdain
behind what he would say

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was quite palpable.

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He thought of his father,
in other words,

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as a man with a weakness

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who should have been
strong enough to conquer it.

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NARRATOR:
Reagan's mother, Nelle,
a devout Christian,

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became his moral compass.

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With her guidance, he began
to take charge of his life.