1 00:00:07,173 --> 00:00:09,009 You know, I received an invitation 2 00:00:09,042 --> 00:00:12,245 that said, "Please come to Ellis Island July 4 3 00:00:12,278 --> 00:00:14,614 "for the hundredth birthday celebration 4 00:00:14,647 --> 00:00:17,283 of an American institution." 5 00:00:17,317 --> 00:00:19,986 Somebody goofed-- my birthday isn't until February. 6 00:00:20,020 --> 00:00:23,056 ♪ ♪ 7 00:00:27,527 --> 00:00:30,797 NARRATOR: On July 4, 1986, 8 00:00:30,830 --> 00:00:33,333 as he lit a refurbished Statue of Liberty, 9 00:00:33,366 --> 00:00:36,903 Ronald Reagan was at the height of his prestige. 10 00:00:36,936 --> 00:00:41,174 Many wondered which American icon was being celebrated. 11 00:00:41,207 --> 00:00:43,443 (orchestra playing intro to "America the Beautiful") 12 00:00:43,476 --> 00:00:46,946 REAGAN: Tonight we pledge ourselves to each other 13 00:00:46,980 --> 00:00:49,883 and to the cause of human freedom-- 14 00:00:49,916 --> 00:00:55,121 a cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world. 15 00:00:55,155 --> 00:00:58,458 (crowd applauding) 16 00:00:58,491 --> 00:01:02,128 CHORUS: ♪ O beautiful for spacious skies... ♪ 17 00:01:02,162 --> 00:01:05,999 NARRATOR: Ronald Reagan saw America as a special place, 18 00:01:06,032 --> 00:01:09,736 a shining city on a hill, set by God between two oceans 19 00:01:09,769 --> 00:01:13,206 as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. 20 00:01:14,574 --> 00:01:15,975 Reagan is brilliant 21 00:01:16,009 --> 00:01:19,646 at creating a kind of rapport with the country, 22 00:01:19,679 --> 00:01:21,548 appealing to its better angels, 23 00:01:21,581 --> 00:01:24,818 appealing to the native optimism, 24 00:01:24,851 --> 00:01:27,420 which is so much a part of our culture and our tradition. 25 00:01:27,454 --> 00:01:33,526 ♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪ 26 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:38,998 ♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood... ♪ 27 00:01:39,032 --> 00:01:42,802 MAN: When he was asked, on the eve of his election, 28 00:01:42,836 --> 00:01:45,672 "What is it, Governor, that people see in you?" 29 00:01:45,705 --> 00:01:52,745 And Reagan responds, "Would you laugh if I told you 30 00:01:52,779 --> 00:01:56,349 that they look at me and they see themselves?" 31 00:01:56,382 --> 00:01:58,118 WOMAN: And I didn't understand 32 00:01:58,151 --> 00:02:00,386 why people had this adulation for him. 33 00:02:00,420 --> 00:02:03,923 I thought he could possibly press the button. 34 00:02:03,957 --> 00:02:05,024 Yeah. 35 00:02:05,058 --> 00:02:06,626 I was terrified. 36 00:02:06,659 --> 00:02:11,331 (crowd cheering) 37 00:02:11,364 --> 00:02:16,035 MAN: If you seek his monument, look around at what you don't see. 38 00:02:16,069 --> 00:02:18,138 You don't see the Berlin Wall. 39 00:02:18,171 --> 00:02:22,142 You don't see the Iron Curtain from Stettin to Trieste. 40 00:02:23,943 --> 00:02:26,913 NARRATOR: He was America's most ideological president 41 00:02:26,946 --> 00:02:28,148 in his rhetoric, 42 00:02:28,181 --> 00:02:31,684 yet pragmatic in his actions. 43 00:02:31,718 --> 00:02:36,456 He believed in balanced budgets, but never submitted one. 44 00:02:36,489 --> 00:02:42,929 He hated nuclear weapons, but built them by the thousands. 45 00:02:42,962 --> 00:02:45,832 He would write checks to a poor person 46 00:02:45,865 --> 00:02:48,201 as he cut the benefits of many. 47 00:02:48,234 --> 00:02:52,071 He united the country with renewed patriotism, 48 00:02:52,105 --> 00:02:56,309 but his vision of America alienated millions. 49 00:02:56,342 --> 00:02:58,511 He preached family values, 50 00:02:58,545 --> 00:03:02,315 but presided over a dysfunctional family. 51 00:03:03,550 --> 00:03:04,918 You're not going to figure him out. 52 00:03:04,951 --> 00:03:06,553 That's the first thing you need to know. 53 00:03:06,586 --> 00:03:08,254 I don't think he's figured himself out. 54 00:03:08,288 --> 00:03:09,455 I haven't figured him out. 55 00:03:09,489 --> 00:03:11,191 I don't know anybody who has figured him out. 56 00:03:11,224 --> 00:03:14,994 There is this mystery about Reagan that pervades everything, 57 00:03:15,028 --> 00:03:19,032 which is, how much was he aware of what he was doing? 58 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:24,837 NARRATOR: Inattentive to detail and often disengaged, 59 00:03:24,871 --> 00:03:29,108 Reagan led a revolution based on a few simple ideals-- 60 00:03:29,142 --> 00:03:31,711 to free Americans from big government 61 00:03:31,744 --> 00:03:34,814 and the world from communist oppression. 62 00:03:36,616 --> 00:03:38,651 MAN: Before Reagan, 63 00:03:38,685 --> 00:03:40,053 every Western leader had 64 00:03:40,086 --> 00:03:41,955 the same strategic objective regarding the Soviet Union, 65 00:03:41,988 --> 00:03:43,656 which is to not lose. 66 00:03:43,690 --> 00:03:45,658 Reagan came in and he said, 67 00:03:45,692 --> 00:03:49,295 "I don't want to play to not lose; I want to play to win." 68 00:03:49,329 --> 00:03:50,630 MAN: He's tough. 69 00:03:50,663 --> 00:03:52,699 He braces to talk to you. 70 00:03:52,732 --> 00:03:54,934 It's confrontational. 71 00:03:54,968 --> 00:03:57,337 Not unpleasant, but confrontational. 72 00:03:58,671 --> 00:04:01,674 MAN: I often think of him as a nice, soft, silky pillow, 73 00:04:01,708 --> 00:04:04,544 and you could touch it and feel it, it was very nice. 74 00:04:04,577 --> 00:04:07,313 But if you decided, well, let's take a hard punch 75 00:04:07,347 --> 00:04:08,781 and you hit it hard, 76 00:04:08,815 --> 00:04:12,619 you would find in the middle a solid-steel tempered bar. 77 00:04:12,652 --> 00:04:14,454 That was the real Ronald Reagan. 78 00:04:14,487 --> 00:04:16,456 That was the essence of Reagan. 79 00:04:16,489 --> 00:04:19,292 (crowd cheering) 80 00:04:19,325 --> 00:04:23,029 ♪ ♪ 81 00:04:35,975 --> 00:04:40,513 ♪ ♪ 82 00:04:46,886 --> 00:04:49,622 ♪ ♪ 83 00:04:55,428 --> 00:04:57,463 NARRATOR: As president, Ronald Reagan evoked 84 00:04:57,497 --> 00:05:00,800 a simpler place and a simpler time. 85 00:05:00,833 --> 00:05:04,070 (crowd cheering) 86 00:05:04,103 --> 00:05:07,874 ♪ ♪ 87 00:05:07,907 --> 00:05:15,315 Small towns, patriotic values, family, and community. 88 00:05:15,348 --> 00:05:18,551 An idealized America 89 00:05:18,584 --> 00:05:23,022 that no longer was, that perhaps never was... 90 00:05:25,425 --> 00:05:27,527 Even for Ronald Reagan. 91 00:05:29,195 --> 00:05:30,830 He was born in 1911 92 00:05:30,863 --> 00:05:35,268 on the main and only street of Tampico, Illinois, 93 00:05:35,301 --> 00:05:37,070 in circumstances so poor 94 00:05:37,103 --> 00:05:40,840 that years later, while visiting his birthplace, 95 00:05:40,873 --> 00:05:42,842 he visibly recoiled. 96 00:05:44,177 --> 00:05:45,445 His father, Jack, 97 00:05:45,478 --> 00:05:48,414 was a shoe salesman with a taste for whiskey 98 00:05:48,448 --> 00:05:53,219 who spent his life in search of his big break. 99 00:05:53,252 --> 00:05:57,323 From age four, Dutch-- as his parents called him-- 100 00:05:57,357 --> 00:05:59,826 lived the life of a gypsy. 101 00:05:59,859 --> 00:06:03,463 Every year a new town... 102 00:06:03,496 --> 00:06:06,299 new neighbors... 103 00:06:06,332 --> 00:06:09,435 friends left behind. 104 00:06:09,469 --> 00:06:14,474 Dutch had nowhere to go, except within. 105 00:06:14,507 --> 00:06:19,412 MAN: Always in childhood, you will see this distance. 106 00:06:19,445 --> 00:06:23,616 In a group of small-town schoolchildren, 107 00:06:23,649 --> 00:06:26,319 little Ronnie will always be sitting 108 00:06:26,352 --> 00:06:28,621 with his face on his left hand-- 109 00:06:28,654 --> 00:06:30,289 a remote little boy 110 00:06:30,323 --> 00:06:35,228 who somehow held himself aloof from everybody else. 111 00:06:35,261 --> 00:06:39,599 He carried this... distance, this remoteness, this aloofness 112 00:06:39,632 --> 00:06:41,367 right through. 113 00:06:41,401 --> 00:06:42,835 On the one hand, 114 00:06:42,869 --> 00:06:47,707 he's one of the warmest, most amiable, gentlemanly, 115 00:06:47,740 --> 00:06:52,378 kindest people you'd ever want to meet. 116 00:06:52,412 --> 00:06:56,249 And yet he has almost no close friends. 117 00:06:56,282 --> 00:06:59,318 I mean, really, in fact, no close friends. 118 00:06:59,352 --> 00:07:04,257 ♪ ♪ 119 00:07:04,290 --> 00:07:09,095 NARRATOR: Reagan would rarely speak of the pain of his childhood. 120 00:07:09,128 --> 00:07:10,863 He would recall it 121 00:07:10,897 --> 00:07:15,968 as "one of those rare Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer idylls. 122 00:07:16,002 --> 00:07:19,105 "There were woods and mysteries, 123 00:07:19,138 --> 00:07:25,445 "life and death among the small creatures, hunting and fishing; 124 00:07:25,478 --> 00:07:26,813 "those were the days 125 00:07:26,846 --> 00:07:29,916 when I learned the real riches of rags." 126 00:07:33,252 --> 00:07:35,421 MAN: I think it's that kind 127 00:07:35,455 --> 00:07:38,825 of willful optimism in the face of reality 128 00:07:38,858 --> 00:07:41,694 as experienced and defined by others 129 00:07:41,727 --> 00:07:44,063 that tells you a lot about Ronald Reagan 130 00:07:44,096 --> 00:07:47,900 and perhaps even is one clue to understanding his presidency. 131 00:07:49,535 --> 00:07:51,437 NARRATOR: Dutch was nine years old 132 00:07:51,471 --> 00:07:54,440 when the family finally settled in Dixon, Illinois. 133 00:07:54,474 --> 00:07:56,609 A town of 8,000, 134 00:07:56,642 --> 00:08:01,314 Dixon was the essence of "Main Street" America. 135 00:08:01,347 --> 00:08:05,151 Reagan would remember it as "a small universe 136 00:08:05,184 --> 00:08:08,454 "where I learned standards and values that would guide me 137 00:08:08,488 --> 00:08:10,056 for the rest of my life." 138 00:08:11,457 --> 00:08:16,762 MAN: It was the era of Calvin Coolidge's presidency. 139 00:08:16,796 --> 00:08:19,065 Values that Coolidge espoused 140 00:08:19,098 --> 00:08:23,236 were small-town, churchgoing... rugged individualism, 141 00:08:23,269 --> 00:08:27,373 the old 19th-century values of America. 142 00:08:27,406 --> 00:08:32,845 It's a time when Americans are particularly drawn 143 00:08:32,879 --> 00:08:37,216 to this small-town world, because it's beginning to pass. 144 00:08:37,250 --> 00:08:41,687 It's beginning to be eclipsed by the rise of American cities. 145 00:08:43,122 --> 00:08:47,326 NARRATOR: The 1920s were a time of change and opportunity, 146 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:49,662 even for the unpredictable Jack. 147 00:08:49,695 --> 00:08:53,799 He opened his own shoe store, the Fashion Boot Shop, 148 00:08:53,833 --> 00:08:57,236 which became a popular spot in downtown Dixon. 149 00:08:58,471 --> 00:09:00,740 MORRIS: His father loved to tell stories, 150 00:09:00,773 --> 00:09:02,575 stand outside his store 151 00:09:02,608 --> 00:09:05,811 and schmooze with whoever walked past. 152 00:09:05,845 --> 00:09:07,280 In fact, Reagan said 153 00:09:07,313 --> 00:09:10,816 that his father was the best storyteller he ever knew. 154 00:09:13,953 --> 00:09:17,657 NARRATOR: Jack had a weakness Dutch had long known about 155 00:09:17,690 --> 00:09:21,193 but never confronted. 156 00:09:21,227 --> 00:09:24,530 "I was 11 years old the first time I came home 157 00:09:24,564 --> 00:09:28,534 "to find my father flat on his back on the front porch. 158 00:09:28,568 --> 00:09:32,438 "He was drunk, dead to the world, 159 00:09:32,471 --> 00:09:36,042 "his hair soaked with melting snow. 160 00:09:36,075 --> 00:09:40,947 "I bent over him, smelling the sharp odor of whiskey. 161 00:09:40,980 --> 00:09:44,550 I managed to drag him inside and get him to bed." 162 00:09:47,286 --> 00:09:50,723 DALLEK: One of the threads I see running through Ronald Reagan's career 163 00:09:50,756 --> 00:09:55,995 is a great attraction to autonomy, to independence, 164 00:09:56,028 --> 00:09:57,496 to freedom. 165 00:09:57,530 --> 00:10:01,334 And I think a lot of this was a reaction against the fact 166 00:10:01,367 --> 00:10:04,704 that his father had this dependency on a substance 167 00:10:04,737 --> 00:10:07,173 and that he couldn't control himself. 168 00:10:07,206 --> 00:10:11,043 He would never say anything negative about his father, 169 00:10:11,077 --> 00:10:17,083 but the moral disdain behind what he would say 170 00:10:17,116 --> 00:10:18,751 was quite palpable. 171 00:10:18,784 --> 00:10:21,287 He thought of his father, in other words, 172 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:22,588 as a man with a weakness 173 00:10:22,622 --> 00:10:25,458 who should have been strong enough to conquer it. 174 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:31,197 NARRATOR: Reagan's mother, Nelle, a devout Christian, 175 00:10:31,230 --> 00:10:33,366 became his moral compass. 176 00:10:33,399 --> 00:10:36,936 With her guidance, he began to take charge of his life.