Today is Ronald Wilson Reagan's birthday and we are celebrating his life of significance with author Robert Charles, the masterful storyteller of Cherish America-Stories of Courage, Character and Kindness.
Enjoy the "Reagan Riffing" on the principles that guided President Reagan through The Cold War, on his communication skills, the words that inspired us, and on how he cherished our country with action.
Happy Birthday President Reagan. Your work of significance still matters to us.
Visit www.Towerpub.com for more information on Cherish America.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/legends-extraordinary-lives--5351541/support.
Enjoy the "Reagan Riffing" on the principles that guided President Reagan through The Cold War, on his communication skills, the words that inspired us, and on how he cherished our country with action.
Happy Birthday President Reagan. Your work of significance still matters to us.
Visit www.Towerpub.com for more information on Cherish America.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/legends-extraordinary-lives--5351541/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, welcome back to success made to last. I'm Rick
to Keeney. Happy birthday to President Ronald Wilson Reagan. This
would have been his one hundred and fourteenth birthday today.
And joining me is Bobby Charles, who we've had on recently,
(00:29):
who is the author of the book of the year
Cherish America Stories of Courage, character and Kindness. And Bobby
and I are going to attempt to see things through
the lens of one Ronald Wilson Reagan today. Bobby, welcome
back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What a pleasure to be on your show, and to
be on it on a day of consequence, A real joy.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yes, sir. And before we get into some of the
meteor questions, tell our listening audience why President Reagan is
still held in such high esteem by you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, you know, first of all, as a young man
aged twenty one, twenty two, and twenty three, I had
the unusual opportunity to work in his White House off
and on. I did nothing of any consequence, but I
witnessed firsthand the miracle of good leadership close at hand
(01:33):
by a president who really meant what he said, said
what he meant, and changed the world. And so on
one hand, it's personal. On the other hand, as I
have gone on in life and my kids have been
raised and I've I've looked at the impact that Ronald
Reagan had on all of our lives, it's it's breathtaking.
(01:54):
I mean, I would say that in the history of
our country, we may be experiencing right now a president
of this magnitude again, But in the history of our country,
we've had the founding fathers, and the first probably five
or six presidents really fit the mold of life changing,
truly epic presidential timber. And then we had Abraham Lincoln,
(02:18):
whose birthdays also this month, and who we remember as
a man of extraordinary leadership, acumen and fortitude and courage
and character. And then we had people like perhaps Theodore Roosevelt.
I'm a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt's, but Ronald Reagan
(02:39):
is one of those few presidents who fundamentally changed the
earth during his time on earth. And he did it
in a way that was humble and powerful and filled
with examples and lessons about how not only to lead
a country, or to lead an organization, or to a family,
(03:00):
but also to actually lead a life, just the way
that he interacted. I'll never forget that. I went out
after his administration, when he was still quite quite with
the program, and I went out and I visited him
in early nineties and nineteen nineties. And the staff person
(03:22):
who I had who coordinated the visit said to me,
you know, I've worked with Ronald Reagan for eight years,
she told me, And she said, you know, in all
of those eight years, I have never heard anything out
of the side of his mouth that I didn't want
to hear. And she said, it's such an unusual experience
(03:42):
to spend time with a great leader who is also guileless.
And I encourage people to think about that word Rick guileless.
No guile, no deception, no manipulation, no calculation, no sense
of means justifying ends. This is a man who lived
and breathed every day honestly. So I watched him. I
(04:09):
watched him inspire people, not just Americans. I watched him
face to face, inspire anwar, Sadat. I watched him inspire
in Dera Gandhi. I watched him be a force for
goodness in this world in a time. And we're back
in those times again, when there's an awful lot of
(04:29):
evil afoot and to watch the power of goodness and
light change and he changed Gorbachev. I think, I mean,
just to watch the power of light and faith change
people is an unbelievable event, and it just makes you feel.
It uplifts you, It inspires you.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It does, it does. And I'm reminded of what you
wrote in your book, Cherish America, and it's Folcus on
page four twenty four. It says, I shall pass this way,
but once any good that I can do, or any
kindness I can show to any human being, let me
(05:11):
do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again. I think
about Reagan when I read that, and about the influence
that he had, and this this desire, this burned desire
to do things right and to stand up for our
(05:32):
country and to truly make it great. That's how I
will long remember him, and I will teach my grandchildren
about his greatness, and hopefully try to teach him about
his principles. And that's probably a decent segue, Bobby too.
If Reagan were with us today, he's looking back on
(05:54):
his leadership during the Cold War, what principles do you
think guided his decision making in a moment of crises
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You know, I think, Rick, that people who live life
a certain way, and you do, and I do, and
a lot of Americans do with faith with a sense
of continuity in how they behave so much so that
they don't really have to remember what they said yesterday
because it'll be consistent with what they said today and
(06:26):
what they say tomorrow. That kind of a person addresses
crises as if they're just one additional decision or set
of decisions that has to be made by them for
a particular reason at a particular time. And so Ronald
Reagan was. I'll never forget one time talking with Colin
(06:48):
Powell about Reagan, and I worked closely with Powel every day.
I was trying to summarize why I thought Reagan had
been such a good leader, and he finally said, you know, Bobby,
it really was just his spirit. He had an unbelievable
and these are my words, not Powells, but irrepressible spirit.
He had a spirit of can do, a spirit of faith,
(07:10):
a spirit of goodness is going to prevail, a spirit
that if you will just take the risk, if you
will just step forward, you will be rewarded for the
risks you take on behalf of others, in behalf of
a country, on behalf of just doing the right thing.
So I will tell you that I think every day
that Ronald Reagan lived, and it was particularly poignant after
(07:33):
the assassination attempt. Again, perhaps we're witnessing that with another president. Now.
Reagan said after that attempt, every day belonged to the Lord.
After that, and he said, and so what he did, Rick,
is he truly asked of himself what is the right
thing for me to do? And then he tried to
(07:56):
do it. And doesn't mean we always get it right
when we do that. We can be wrong and then
we have to ask ourselves again, Okay, if I got
it wrong, now, what's the right thing to do? And
by the way, I think that was a lesson, just
to segue for a moment, That is a lesson that
Reagan taught on a daily basis to those around him.
(08:18):
And so much so that even though Colin Powell had
his own moral character and strength of character and had
come through a lot of things and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs eventually and Secretary of State, but he he
also I think kind of guided himself by this compass
that what is the right thing right now for me
to do? And Reagan Reagan. The other thing about Reagan
(08:39):
was if you are someone that tries conscientiously fail or
not fail, but you try conscientiously to do the right
thing on any given day, even when it's hard, even
when it's going to cost you something, even when it's
going to set you back, even when it's going to
cause you to lose friends, whatever it may cost you.
If you do try to do the right thing every day, interestingly,
(09:05):
I think you sleep better at night and you wake
up the next morning fully infused with the idea that
you can do it again. And that is how Reagan was.
He also it took almost nothing personally, which is which
is another attribute of character. He he allowed that there
will be critics, and uh and and and interestingly the
(09:26):
same way that Abraham Lincoln did. He allowed that there
would be critics, but he did not allow the critics.
He did not allow it to be the view that
that the critics. He never let it become personal. And
and so this is a this is a really significant
gauge of leadership because most things in life that happened
(09:46):
that when someone's angry with you or a critic of you,
they may have a logical reason to be critical of you,
but it's also a fact that it may also be
animated by something emotional in their lives. And Reagan was
always able to see that and not take it personally.
And so did Paul, by the way, and I think so, Net,
I look at this and I say, Ronald Reagan was
(10:07):
able to deal with crises by applying his faith, his experience,
and his belief that somehow God would give him the
wisdom to make the right decision in the moment, just
like in the Bible that says God will give you
the words, and God always gave him the words.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
He did beautiful Bridge Bobby too. I think in today's
world we tend to recruit people and then let them
go too fast. And he was skilled at knowing the
right people that should surround him, and often those that
(10:50):
provided him the right words. I remain a big fan
of Peggy Noonan, who was one of his speech writers,
who to my knowledge wrote speech wrote the words for
Ronald after the Challenger disaster and even for the fortieth
aniversary there at D Day, Normandy and I'm wondering. I'd
(11:10):
love for you to comment on Reagan's skillfulness at recruiting
right and keeping people on board for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So to two points, and they're important to clarify. First
about speech writers. Peggy Noonan, she's a very good writer.
She's a very smart lady. Peggy Noonan worked for Tony Dolan.
Tony Dolan was Ronald Reagan's chief speech writer, and I've
(11:44):
worked with Tony for I don't know, fifteen years, twenty years, Tony.
So the words that were used in these speeches, believe
it or not, many of them really came from Reagan.
They didn't come from Pegging, and they didn't come from Tony.
When when Reagan spoke at Normandy. Even though a speech
(12:06):
writer shapes and ads, perhaps illustrations and make sure that
the syncopation the cadence are right, Reagan was a great
writer in his own right. And and the proof of this,
by the way, is the thousands of letters that he
wrote that speak to the reader and to speak to
(12:27):
us the same way that that speech at Normandy, pont
to Hawk, the boys of pont the Hawk, the same
way the Evil Empire speech, the same way the tear
down that wall. This wall speech Reagan, Reagan was the
origin of all of those words and sentiments. They were
just organized or reorganized by a speech writer in a
(12:48):
way that would create flow. So I say that because,
for example, on the Evil Empire speech, which Tony Dolan
was very instrumental in, and and the speech at the
Berlin Wall, really it was Reagan saying to others, this
is what I want to say, and I want to
say it as persuasively as possible, and this is what
(13:11):
I want to say, and a lot of it he
wrote down by hand himself. Interestingly, so did in the
old days, so did Abraham Lincoln. There weren't any typewriters
back then, so Lincoln would write out what he had
to say by hand. And so I say that, first
of all, because speech writers are important. They make sure
(13:33):
that you get everything in in the right time, excuse me,
And they also give you a flow sometimes or metaphors
that you might not have thought of. But ultimately, Reagan
was responsible for virtually all the content that came out
of his mouth. The second thing is he was for
sure a recruiter of good people, and he grew those people.
(13:55):
And he also knew character when he saw it. So
you know, when al Hag stepped out of line, I
don't think it was more than half a day. Then
al Hague was gone and George Schultz was in his place.
Reagan was decisive. He knew when people were acting within
(14:15):
the realm of what was expected of them, and he
knew when they were acting outside that realm, and he
and he responded accordingly. He also had the ability, I think,
to see to see opportunities for growing people, so not
just in his own team, and he of course had
done this out in California. He he you know, the
loyalty that he inspired of people like Ed Meese who's
(14:36):
still alive and was the attorney general for Ronald Reagan,
extraordinary attorney general, one of the best attorney generals in
the in the last one hundred and fifty years, I
would say. But he also Reagan also inspired people because
he gave them the opportunity to be their best. So
if you know Michael Deavers who had come a board later,
(14:58):
or Jim Baker had come aboard LA had not been part. Actually,
Kim Baker had been the campaign manager for George Herbert
Walker Bush when he ran against Reagan in the primary.
Reagan was very quick to say, no, he's very talented
and bring him aboard. And so, you know, I think
that one of the great aspects of a leader is
being able to find good people who do things, perhaps
(15:19):
even better than you do them, and put them in
place to do those things. Donald Trump has a great
tendency to do that. Lincoln had his. I think they
called it a team of rivals, and frankly, even back
to our founding fathers, one of the great attributes that
Reagan reflected is putting people in place who might not
get along with each other, but causing them to get
(15:41):
along with each other by valuing what they bring to
the table. And you know, you'll remember that George Washington
had you know, Hamilton and Jefferson and others you know
around him, and of course Adams as his vice president.
And these people didn't always get along with each other. Well,
not everybody got along with each other in Reagan's group either,
but he brought the best people to the table and
(16:02):
in effect caused them to get along with each other
because he respected them and in turn showed them how
to respect each other. So leadership is a complex thing.
Reagan was also very funny and humor has this extraordinary
ability to bring people together too. So he had lived
such a full life by the time he became president
(16:23):
that that I think he was just putting into practice
things that that his long life had already taught him.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, I do too. That You make me think about
the debate where he turned around that question and talked
about that he would not let the youth and inexperience
of his.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Of the guy that was running. So it was just well,
it was a go ahead. You know. The thing about that, Rick,
is that that was Walter Mondale, of course, who had
been Jimmy Carter's vice president, running against him. The most
phenomenal part of that moment in that debate when a
question or asked him if he wasn't getting up there
in years and if the stresses of making big decisions
(17:10):
wouldn't be a little too much for him, and he said,
as you said, he wasn't going to allow the youth
and inexperience of his opponent to be a disadvantager to
be used against him. The funniest part about that was
that Walter Mondale himself burst into laughter and so, look,
if you can convert your enemies, as Lincoln said, and
(17:31):
as Reagan often did with humor, then you're twice as
far down the field, precisely.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And you mentioned his famous words that he told Gorbachew
but in the Tear Down This Wall. But what you
mentioned in our first conversation Bobby was about the forty
letters that he had written to him. And I'm wondering,
as we celebrate Ronald Reagan today, what advice do you
think that President Reagan would give to Trump about confronting
(18:05):
authoritarian regimes.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
You know, I think that this is a delicate balance, Rick,
and surely it would be advice that Reagan would give,
But I think Reagan would also be nodding at many
of the ways that Donald Trump has addressed evil. It's
a delicate balance. On the one hand, you have to
recognize and formally and thoroughly oppose evil. On the other hand,
(18:30):
you have to look at human beings and understand that
there is the possibility in a human being that they
can see the light. And one of the chapters in
the book Cherish America, is about a question that I
asked Gorbachev at a particular event and Gorbachev's answer, and
then the follow on turn of events that occurred later
(18:53):
after that, I asked Gorbachev if he, excuse me, excuse me,
if he believed in God. And it was a very
interesting answer. And the reason I asked him was because
I felt that something inside Reagan had alerted, or Reagan
(19:14):
had recognized that there was something in Gorbachev that was
different from undrop off On, Chernenko and Brezhnev and all
of those prior leaders. And of course Reagan was absolutely right,
without knowing it, he identified in Gorbachev something that went
to a higher power that Gorbachev was able to digest.
(19:39):
And over the course of those forty letters, Reagan draws
Gorbachev toward him and they become in fact friends, as
they both attested at the ends of their lives. And
one of the things so Gorbachev said, when I was
growing up, in effact, he said, I was my grandparents
played a very important role in my life. And my
(20:01):
grandfather was a diehard Communist, and there was a picture
of Lenin on the wall, and my grandmother was an
Orthodox Christian, and there was an icon of Christ beside
Lenin on that same wall, and somehow intuitively Reagan knew
(20:22):
there was something else there. And so Gorbachev's answer to
me was kind of a long winded way of saying,
there was this influence on my life, but excuse me,
and I do detail it in the book. But it
was also the fact that when Reagan died, and at
that time I was working at the State Department, and
(20:44):
I watched the case on pass the building with the
riderless horse and the upside down boot and all the
traditions taking his body to the Capitol to Lion State,
and I went and did pay my respects to At
the moment where I was about to step into the rotunda,
(21:05):
I was asked to step back by the Capitol police,
and a little man by himself, no entourage, nothing, came
through and came over to the casket, excuse me, and
bowed his head and stayed there briefly and then quietly
retreated and no press, nothing, And that little man was Gorbachev.
(21:26):
So the bottom line is that I think Reagan found
a way to, on the one hand, understand and articulate
why and how and with such vehemence we should always
oppose evil, but also had this capacity to see into
people and recognize that for lack of a better way
(21:46):
to say it, and again back to Lincoln, and Reagan
used the same phrase that that we need to be
asked to hear the better angels of our nature, and
that that also means listening to the better angels of
our nature as we see them in other people, and
and trying to create expectations and outcomes that reflect our
(22:09):
faith in them or in what they can be. And
in many ways, Gorbachev, I think personally, even though there
was a lot of international pressure, and there was economic
pressure and military pressure and SDI and all that, a
lot of it was also very personal. And Reagan essentially
never let Gorbachev down. He said, in effect, I have
(22:31):
faith in your ability to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That was well stated. Bobby, drink some hot tea while
we take this quick commercial, and I want to make
sure that everyone purchases your book, Cherish America. I'm now
in my third time of reading it. It was selected
as as book of the Year nonfiction. There's there's something
(23:01):
that makes me come back to the well, and it's
this perfect blend of story, patriotism, people of significance that
have just walked the talk, and I appreciate it more
and more you can purchase the book, of course on Amazon,
(23:23):
Barnes and Noble, which, by the way, announced today that
they were opening sixty new stores, which is like, that's
the first to hear in a long time.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
And I'm wondering, Bobby, if any of our audience can
get how they can get a sign autograph copy from
you of Cherish America.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, so the answer is if when you order, if
you order it from Tower Publishing or towerpub dot com,
which is the actual publisher, and if you tell them
that you want to sign copy and make sure you
get one.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
That is great. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Okay, We're going to ask Bobby just a few more questions,
and they're almost derivatives from your book. If Ronald Reagan
were on today for this special birthday show, what would
he want to tell the audience about the definition of
e pluribus unum.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Ah, one from many from many one. I think in
the end, Ronald Reagan would tell us again to believe
in our best selves and to believe that of our neighbor.
You know, I often give speeches around the country, and
and I'm happy to give speeches, but one of the
(24:48):
distilling points I say is that if you want to
do something, you have to envision it. So you want
to be an Olympic pole vaulter, first you have to
imagine yourself being an Olympic pole vault or now. Secondly,
you have to believe that you can do it. You
have to truly have the conviction that this can happen.
(25:08):
And third you have to work as hard as you
possibly can to get there. One of the things Ronald
Reagan reminded us is that the American Dream is about
that very process. And it's true for every one of
us individually, and it is true collectively. The reason we
have four hundred Nobel Prizes and China has nine is
because we are a people who do that. We believe
(25:32):
it is possible to do things that other people can't
believe it is possible to do, from creating medicines that
save lives to creating the automobile, to going to the
moon to bringing down the Soviet Union. We are a
people who, like know, people on the face of the planet,
for the history of people on the face of the planet,
(25:53):
have been able to do things and move humanity forward
in ways that we're just incomprehensible. And of course the
basis for that. The foundation for that is the freedoms,
the individual freedoms that are Founding Fathers locked into our
constitution and made the very the foundation stone of who
(26:14):
the country would be. Ronald Reagan personified that interestingly, he
and I go back to Lincoln again, both this month birthdays,
but both he and Lincoln drew tremendous power inspiration from
the founding fathers, And so I think part of it
is we look at this and we say, and he
would say, be your best self, go out there, tackle
(26:37):
the world, do good, and and remember to keep doing
good for with buy respect for your neighbor. We are Americans,
and we have to respect each other and respect ourselves,
and and also recognize that we have to be equal
to our time in every time there are new challenges.
(26:58):
Reagan faced the challenges of his time, Lincoln at his time.
We have new challenges today. And I think Reagan's advice
would be lean into it. Don't don't lean away from it,
Lean into it. And whatever is out there that we
have to do to to bring this country to the
next level, and to bring ourselves individually to whatever the
next level is, get on it, get get at it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Exactly exactly final comment. I'll start when Reagan wrote a
letter to America about his final days. I felt like
that he wrote that letter to me personally. And I
don't want to get surupy in sweet and over dramatic
(27:47):
on his birthday, But what a skill set to be
able to talk to individuals through writing a letter and
to say good bye to us. When we receive that letter,
that news, it was almost a countdown, a watch of
(28:09):
the number of days that may be remaining in his life.
And when we visit the Romal Reagan Presidential Library for
the umpteeth time, I'll stand there in front of his grave,
and I know that he wasn't perfect, and he wasn't
a saint, but I will always marvel and how he
personally connected and he touched our hearts, and he did
(28:32):
it with such optimism and such patriotism to where we
still love the country more than ever today.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know, Rick, you have put your finger on something
that was truly unique about Reagan. I don't know how
many leaders in the history of humanity have had this attribute.
But he cared deeply about people, and he cared about
people he didn't ever meet, and cared about people he met.
(29:01):
He cared about people in his family, people who worked
for him, He cared about all Americans. And if you
think about the fact that he spent the better part
of his presidency freeing three hundred million people that weren't
even Americans, it's clear that he he cared from the
(29:23):
bottom of his heart and as a matter of faith,
about humanity and about the souls of other people. And
I think when someone writes or prays or speaks from
the heart, it's self evident. If it's a mechanical act,
(29:44):
it's self evidently a mechanical act or a political act.
But when Reagan communicated, he was really just sharing a
very deeply felt connection with the people that he communicated with.
And that final letter about Alzheimer's was him empathizing with
(30:07):
the country that he knew cared about him and and
he wanted to comfort them us. And he wanted also
to let everyone know that if you live a life
that is consistently animated by the spirit of faith and
(30:29):
giving and service, then it will be okay.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Is it will be?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
It will be okay. And I think his letter was
it was an informing process, Rick, but it was also
a process of trying to comfort the country that he
cared so deeply about. You know, this book Cherish America
has stories about Reagan in it, but in some ways,
I mean, as you speak to me today and we
(31:00):
talk about Reagan on his birthday, I in fact, in
many ways, you know it, it's sort of lifting pieces
right out of the book because he he you know,
his he cherished America and and he believed that America
had made possible all the good things that he experienced
in life. And he really wanted to give that back,
(31:22):
uh in in in the course of his service to
California and this and his service to us as president.
But he also wanted to give it back at the
end of his life. You know, the the most I
guess influential people, uh in our lives are those that
try to be guides downstream toward the end of life,
(31:42):
show us how it's done. And you know, if if
any of the rest of us are afflicted by Alzheimer's,
I would say Reagan has showed us how it's done.
There is a nobility and a faith, and a strength
and a and a an other regarding way that you
that you confront challenges in life and even those that
happened toward the end of life. So again I would
(32:05):
only tell you that I think that letter was really
a letter compassionately written to the people, all of us
of America, so that we would understand that as far
as he was concerned, he was going to be Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
That's right, and he might as well have said, Bobby, sincerely, yours,
Ronnie and PS Cherish America. Right, that's right, Bobby Charles,
Thank you so much for joining us. Your book inspired
us to have this celebration today of President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
(32:43):
We appreciate you and love the book Cherish America. We
think it's the twenty twenty five version of Profiles and Courage,
and so many rich stories coming out of it. Thanks again,
my friend Rick.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Thank you and thanks for giving time to this. I
hope everybody enjoys the book. Stories are about many, many people,
and frankly, I hope people see reflections of themselves in
the stories.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
They will they will. Until next time, folks, we wish
you success on your way to significance, and remember to
cherish America.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
At Brad
Hey, welcome back to success made to last. I'm Rick
to Keeney. Happy birthday to President Ronald Wilson Reagan. This
would have been his one hundred and fourteenth birthday today.
And joining me is Bobby Charles, who we've had on recently,
(00:29):
who is the author of the book of the year
Cherish America Stories of Courage, character and Kindness. And Bobby
and I are going to attempt to see things through
the lens of one Ronald Wilson Reagan today. Bobby, welcome
back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What a pleasure to be on your show, and to
be on it on a day of consequence, A real joy.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yes, sir. And before we get into some of the
meteor questions, tell our listening audience why President Reagan is
still held in such high esteem by you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, you know, first of all, as a young man
aged twenty one, twenty two, and twenty three, I had
the unusual opportunity to work in his White House off
and on. I did nothing of any consequence, but I
witnessed firsthand the miracle of good leadership close at hand
(01:33):
by a president who really meant what he said, said
what he meant, and changed the world. And so on
one hand, it's personal. On the other hand, as I
have gone on in life and my kids have been
raised and I've I've looked at the impact that Ronald
Reagan had on all of our lives, it's it's breathtaking.
(01:54):
I mean, I would say that in the history of
our country, we may be experiencing right now a president
of this magnitude again, But in the history of our country,
we've had the founding fathers, and the first probably five
or six presidents really fit the mold of life changing,
truly epic presidential timber. And then we had Abraham Lincoln,
(02:18):
whose birthdays also this month, and who we remember as
a man of extraordinary leadership, acumen and fortitude and courage
and character. And then we had people like perhaps Theodore Roosevelt.
I'm a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt's, but Ronald Reagan
(02:39):
is one of those few presidents who fundamentally changed the
earth during his time on earth. And he did it
in a way that was humble and powerful and filled
with examples and lessons about how not only to lead
a country, or to lead an organization, or to a family,
(03:00):
but also to actually lead a life, just the way
that he interacted. I'll never forget that. I went out
after his administration, when he was still quite quite with
the program, and I went out and I visited him
in early nineties and nineteen nineties. And the staff person
(03:22):
who I had who coordinated the visit said to me,
you know, I've worked with Ronald Reagan for eight years,
she told me, And she said, you know, in all
of those eight years, I have never heard anything out
of the side of his mouth that I didn't want
to hear. And she said, it's such an unusual experience
(03:42):
to spend time with a great leader who is also guileless.
And I encourage people to think about that word Rick guileless.
No guile, no deception, no manipulation, no calculation, no sense
of means justifying ends. This is a man who lived
and breathed every day honestly. So I watched him. I
(04:09):
watched him inspire people, not just Americans. I watched him
face to face, inspire anwar, Sadat. I watched him inspire
in Dera Gandhi. I watched him be a force for
goodness in this world in a time. And we're back
in those times again, when there's an awful lot of
(04:29):
evil afoot and to watch the power of goodness and
light change and he changed Gorbachev. I think, I mean,
just to watch the power of light and faith change
people is an unbelievable event, and it just makes you feel.
It uplifts you, It inspires you.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It does, it does. And I'm reminded of what you
wrote in your book, Cherish America, and it's Folcus on
page four twenty four. It says, I shall pass this way,
but once any good that I can do, or any
kindness I can show to any human being, let me
(05:11):
do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again. I think
about Reagan when I read that, and about the influence
that he had, and this this desire, this burned desire
to do things right and to stand up for our
(05:32):
country and to truly make it great. That's how I
will long remember him, and I will teach my grandchildren
about his greatness, and hopefully try to teach him about
his principles. And that's probably a decent segue, Bobby too.
If Reagan were with us today, he's looking back on
(05:54):
his leadership during the Cold War, what principles do you
think guided his decision making in a moment of crises
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You know, I think, Rick, that people who live life
a certain way, and you do, and I do, and
a lot of Americans do with faith with a sense
of continuity in how they behave so much so that
they don't really have to remember what they said yesterday
because it'll be consistent with what they said today and
(06:26):
what they say tomorrow. That kind of a person addresses
crises as if they're just one additional decision or set
of decisions that has to be made by them for
a particular reason at a particular time. And so Ronald
Reagan was. I'll never forget one time talking with Colin
(06:48):
Powell about Reagan, and I worked closely with Powel every day.
I was trying to summarize why I thought Reagan had
been such a good leader, and he finally said, you know, Bobby,
it really was just his spirit. He had an unbelievable
and these are my words, not Powells, but irrepressible spirit.
He had a spirit of can do, a spirit of faith,
(07:10):
a spirit of goodness is going to prevail, a spirit
that if you will just take the risk, if you
will just step forward, you will be rewarded for the
risks you take on behalf of others, in behalf of
a country, on behalf of just doing the right thing.
So I will tell you that I think every day
that Ronald Reagan lived, and it was particularly poignant after
(07:33):
the assassination attempt. Again, perhaps we're witnessing that with another president. Now.
Reagan said after that attempt, every day belonged to the Lord.
After that, and he said, and so what he did, Rick,
is he truly asked of himself what is the right
thing for me to do? And then he tried to
(07:56):
do it. And doesn't mean we always get it right
when we do that. We can be wrong and then
we have to ask ourselves again, Okay, if I got
it wrong, now, what's the right thing to do? And
by the way, I think that was a lesson, just
to segue for a moment, That is a lesson that
Reagan taught on a daily basis to those around him.
(08:18):
And so much so that even though Colin Powell had
his own moral character and strength of character and had
come through a lot of things and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs eventually and Secretary of State, but he he
also I think kind of guided himself by this compass
that what is the right thing right now for me
to do? And Reagan Reagan. The other thing about Reagan
(08:39):
was if you are someone that tries conscientiously fail or
not fail, but you try conscientiously to do the right
thing on any given day, even when it's hard, even
when it's going to cost you something, even when it's
going to set you back, even when it's going to
cause you to lose friends, whatever it may cost you.
If you do try to do the right thing every day, interestingly,
(09:05):
I think you sleep better at night and you wake
up the next morning fully infused with the idea that
you can do it again. And that is how Reagan was.
He also it took almost nothing personally, which is which
is another attribute of character. He he allowed that there
will be critics, and uh and and and interestingly the
(09:26):
same way that Abraham Lincoln did. He allowed that there
would be critics, but he did not allow the critics.
He did not allow it to be the view that
that the critics. He never let it become personal. And
and so this is a this is a really significant
gauge of leadership because most things in life that happened
(09:46):
that when someone's angry with you or a critic of you,
they may have a logical reason to be critical of you,
but it's also a fact that it may also be
animated by something emotional in their lives. And Reagan was
always able to see that and not take it personally.
And so did Paul, by the way, and I think so, Net,
I look at this and I say, Ronald Reagan was
(10:07):
able to deal with crises by applying his faith, his experience,
and his belief that somehow God would give him the
wisdom to make the right decision in the moment, just
like in the Bible that says God will give you
the words, and God always gave him the words.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
He did beautiful Bridge Bobby too. I think in today's
world we tend to recruit people and then let them
go too fast. And he was skilled at knowing the
right people that should surround him, and often those that
(10:50):
provided him the right words. I remain a big fan
of Peggy Noonan, who was one of his speech writers,
who to my knowledge wrote speech wrote the words for
Ronald after the Challenger disaster and even for the fortieth
aniversary there at D Day, Normandy and I'm wondering. I'd
(11:10):
love for you to comment on Reagan's skillfulness at recruiting
right and keeping people on board for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So to two points, and they're important to clarify. First
about speech writers. Peggy Noonan, she's a very good writer.
She's a very smart lady. Peggy Noonan worked for Tony Dolan.
Tony Dolan was Ronald Reagan's chief speech writer, and I've
(11:44):
worked with Tony for I don't know, fifteen years, twenty years, Tony.
So the words that were used in these speeches, believe
it or not, many of them really came from Reagan.
They didn't come from Pegging, and they didn't come from Tony.
When when Reagan spoke at Normandy. Even though a speech
(12:06):
writer shapes and ads, perhaps illustrations and make sure that
the syncopation the cadence are right, Reagan was a great
writer in his own right. And and the proof of this,
by the way, is the thousands of letters that he
wrote that speak to the reader and to speak to
(12:27):
us the same way that that speech at Normandy, pont
to Hawk, the boys of pont the Hawk, the same
way the Evil Empire speech, the same way the tear
down that wall. This wall speech Reagan, Reagan was the
origin of all of those words and sentiments. They were
just organized or reorganized by a speech writer in a
(12:48):
way that would create flow. So I say that because,
for example, on the Evil Empire speech, which Tony Dolan
was very instrumental in, and and the speech at the
Berlin Wall, really it was Reagan saying to others, this
is what I want to say, and I want to
say it as persuasively as possible, and this is what
(13:11):
I want to say, and a lot of it he
wrote down by hand himself. Interestingly, so did in the
old days, so did Abraham Lincoln. There weren't any typewriters
back then, so Lincoln would write out what he had
to say by hand. And so I say that, first
of all, because speech writers are important. They make sure
(13:33):
that you get everything in in the right time, excuse me,
And they also give you a flow sometimes or metaphors
that you might not have thought of. But ultimately, Reagan
was responsible for virtually all the content that came out
of his mouth. The second thing is he was for
sure a recruiter of good people, and he grew those people.
(13:55):
And he also knew character when he saw it. So
you know, when al Hag stepped out of line, I
don't think it was more than half a day. Then
al Hague was gone and George Schultz was in his place.
Reagan was decisive. He knew when people were acting within
(14:15):
the realm of what was expected of them, and he
knew when they were acting outside that realm, and he
and he responded accordingly. He also had the ability, I think,
to see to see opportunities for growing people, so not
just in his own team, and he of course had
done this out in California. He he you know, the
loyalty that he inspired of people like Ed Meese who's
(14:36):
still alive and was the attorney general for Ronald Reagan,
extraordinary attorney general, one of the best attorney generals in
the in the last one hundred and fifty years, I
would say. But he also Reagan also inspired people because
he gave them the opportunity to be their best. So
if you know Michael Deavers who had come a board later,
(14:58):
or Jim Baker had come aboard LA had not been part. Actually,
Kim Baker had been the campaign manager for George Herbert
Walker Bush when he ran against Reagan in the primary.
Reagan was very quick to say, no, he's very talented
and bring him aboard. And so, you know, I think
that one of the great aspects of a leader is
being able to find good people who do things, perhaps
(15:19):
even better than you do them, and put them in
place to do those things. Donald Trump has a great
tendency to do that. Lincoln had his. I think they
called it a team of rivals, and frankly, even back
to our founding fathers, one of the great attributes that
Reagan reflected is putting people in place who might not
get along with each other, but causing them to get
(15:41):
along with each other by valuing what they bring to
the table. And you know, you'll remember that George Washington
had you know, Hamilton and Jefferson and others you know
around him, and of course Adams as his vice president.
And these people didn't always get along with each other. Well,
not everybody got along with each other in Reagan's group either,
but he brought the best people to the table and
(16:02):
in effect caused them to get along with each other
because he respected them and in turn showed them how
to respect each other. So leadership is a complex thing.
Reagan was also very funny and humor has this extraordinary
ability to bring people together too. So he had lived
such a full life by the time he became president
(16:23):
that that I think he was just putting into practice
things that that his long life had already taught him.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, I do too. That You make me think about
the debate where he turned around that question and talked
about that he would not let the youth and inexperience
of his.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Of the guy that was running. So it was just well,
it was a go ahead. You know. The thing about that, Rick,
is that that was Walter Mondale, of course, who had
been Jimmy Carter's vice president, running against him. The most
phenomenal part of that moment in that debate when a
question or asked him if he wasn't getting up there
in years and if the stresses of making big decisions
(17:10):
wouldn't be a little too much for him, and he said,
as you said, he wasn't going to allow the youth
and inexperience of his opponent to be a disadvantager to
be used against him. The funniest part about that was
that Walter Mondale himself burst into laughter and so, look,
if you can convert your enemies, as Lincoln said, and
(17:31):
as Reagan often did with humor, then you're twice as
far down the field, precisely.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And you mentioned his famous words that he told Gorbachew
but in the Tear Down This Wall. But what you
mentioned in our first conversation Bobby was about the forty
letters that he had written to him. And I'm wondering,
as we celebrate Ronald Reagan today, what advice do you
think that President Reagan would give to Trump about confronting
(18:05):
authoritarian regimes.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
You know, I think that this is a delicate balance, Rick,
and surely it would be advice that Reagan would give,
But I think Reagan would also be nodding at many
of the ways that Donald Trump has addressed evil. It's
a delicate balance. On the one hand, you have to
recognize and formally and thoroughly oppose evil. On the other hand,
(18:30):
you have to look at human beings and understand that
there is the possibility in a human being that they
can see the light. And one of the chapters in
the book Cherish America, is about a question that I
asked Gorbachev at a particular event and Gorbachev's answer, and
then the follow on turn of events that occurred later
(18:53):
after that, I asked Gorbachev if he, excuse me, excuse me,
if he believed in God. And it was a very
interesting answer. And the reason I asked him was because
I felt that something inside Reagan had alerted, or Reagan
(19:14):
had recognized that there was something in Gorbachev that was
different from undrop off On, Chernenko and Brezhnev and all
of those prior leaders. And of course Reagan was absolutely right,
without knowing it, he identified in Gorbachev something that went
to a higher power that Gorbachev was able to digest.
(19:39):
And over the course of those forty letters, Reagan draws
Gorbachev toward him and they become in fact friends, as
they both attested at the ends of their lives. And
one of the things so Gorbachev said, when I was
growing up, in effact, he said, I was my grandparents
played a very important role in my life. And my
(20:01):
grandfather was a diehard Communist, and there was a picture
of Lenin on the wall, and my grandmother was an
Orthodox Christian, and there was an icon of Christ beside
Lenin on that same wall, and somehow intuitively Reagan knew
(20:22):
there was something else there. And so Gorbachev's answer to
me was kind of a long winded way of saying,
there was this influence on my life, but excuse me,
and I do detail it in the book. But it
was also the fact that when Reagan died, and at
that time I was working at the State Department, and
(20:44):
I watched the case on pass the building with the
riderless horse and the upside down boot and all the
traditions taking his body to the Capitol to Lion State,
and I went and did pay my respects to At
the moment where I was about to step into the rotunda,
(21:05):
I was asked to step back by the Capitol police,
and a little man by himself, no entourage, nothing, came
through and came over to the casket, excuse me, and
bowed his head and stayed there briefly and then quietly
retreated and no press, nothing, And that little man was Gorbachev.
(21:26):
So the bottom line is that I think Reagan found
a way to, on the one hand, understand and articulate
why and how and with such vehemence we should always
oppose evil, but also had this capacity to see into
people and recognize that for lack of a better way
(21:46):
to say it, and again back to Lincoln, and Reagan
used the same phrase that that we need to be
asked to hear the better angels of our nature, and
that that also means listening to the better angels of
our nature as we see them in other people, and
and trying to create expectations and outcomes that reflect our
(22:09):
faith in them or in what they can be. And
in many ways, Gorbachev, I think personally, even though there
was a lot of international pressure, and there was economic
pressure and military pressure and SDI and all that, a
lot of it was also very personal. And Reagan essentially
never let Gorbachev down. He said, in effect, I have
(22:31):
faith in your ability to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That was well stated. Bobby, drink some hot tea while
we take this quick commercial, and I want to make
sure that everyone purchases your book, Cherish America. I'm now
in my third time of reading it. It was selected
as as book of the Year nonfiction. There's there's something
(23:01):
that makes me come back to the well, and it's
this perfect blend of story, patriotism, people of significance that
have just walked the talk, and I appreciate it more
and more you can purchase the book, of course on Amazon,
(23:23):
Barnes and Noble, which, by the way, announced today that
they were opening sixty new stores, which is like, that's
the first to hear in a long time.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
And I'm wondering, Bobby, if any of our audience can
get how they can get a sign autograph copy from
you of Cherish America.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, so the answer is if when you order, if
you order it from Tower Publishing or towerpub dot com,
which is the actual publisher, and if you tell them
that you want to sign copy and make sure you
get one.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
That is great. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Okay, We're going to ask Bobby just a few more questions,
and they're almost derivatives from your book. If Ronald Reagan
were on today for this special birthday show, what would
he want to tell the audience about the definition of
e pluribus unum.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Ah, one from many from many one. I think in
the end, Ronald Reagan would tell us again to believe
in our best selves and to believe that of our neighbor.
You know, I often give speeches around the country, and
and I'm happy to give speeches, but one of the
(24:48):
distilling points I say is that if you want to
do something, you have to envision it. So you want
to be an Olympic pole vaulter, first you have to
imagine yourself being an Olympic pole vault or now. Secondly,
you have to believe that you can do it. You
have to truly have the conviction that this can happen.
(25:08):
And third you have to work as hard as you
possibly can to get there. One of the things Ronald
Reagan reminded us is that the American Dream is about
that very process. And it's true for every one of
us individually, and it is true collectively. The reason we
have four hundred Nobel Prizes and China has nine is
because we are a people who do that. We believe
(25:32):
it is possible to do things that other people can't
believe it is possible to do, from creating medicines that
save lives to creating the automobile, to going to the
moon to bringing down the Soviet Union. We are a
people who, like know, people on the face of the planet,
for the history of people on the face of the planet,
(25:53):
have been able to do things and move humanity forward
in ways that we're just incomprehensible. And of course the
basis for that. The foundation for that is the freedoms,
the individual freedoms that are Founding Fathers locked into our
constitution and made the very the foundation stone of who
(26:14):
the country would be. Ronald Reagan personified that interestingly, he
and I go back to Lincoln again, both this month birthdays,
but both he and Lincoln drew tremendous power inspiration from
the founding fathers, And so I think part of it
is we look at this and we say, and he
would say, be your best self, go out there, tackle
(26:37):
the world, do good, and and remember to keep doing
good for with buy respect for your neighbor. We are Americans,
and we have to respect each other and respect ourselves,
and and also recognize that we have to be equal
to our time in every time there are new challenges.
(26:58):
Reagan faced the challenges of his time, Lincoln at his time.
We have new challenges today. And I think Reagan's advice
would be lean into it. Don't don't lean away from it,
Lean into it. And whatever is out there that we
have to do to to bring this country to the
next level, and to bring ourselves individually to whatever the
next level is, get on it, get get at it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Exactly exactly final comment. I'll start when Reagan wrote a
letter to America about his final days. I felt like
that he wrote that letter to me personally. And I
don't want to get surupy in sweet and over dramatic
(27:47):
on his birthday, But what a skill set to be
able to talk to individuals through writing a letter and
to say good bye to us. When we receive that letter,
that news, it was almost a countdown, a watch of
(28:09):
the number of days that may be remaining in his life.
And when we visit the Romal Reagan Presidential Library for
the umpteeth time, I'll stand there in front of his grave,
and I know that he wasn't perfect, and he wasn't
a saint, but I will always marvel and how he
personally connected and he touched our hearts, and he did
(28:32):
it with such optimism and such patriotism to where we
still love the country more than ever today.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know, Rick, you have put your finger on something
that was truly unique about Reagan. I don't know how
many leaders in the history of humanity have had this attribute.
But he cared deeply about people, and he cared about
people he didn't ever meet, and cared about people he met.
(29:01):
He cared about people in his family, people who worked
for him, He cared about all Americans. And if you
think about the fact that he spent the better part
of his presidency freeing three hundred million people that weren't
even Americans, it's clear that he he cared from the
(29:23):
bottom of his heart and as a matter of faith,
about humanity and about the souls of other people. And
I think when someone writes or prays or speaks from
the heart, it's self evident. If it's a mechanical act,
(29:44):
it's self evidently a mechanical act or a political act.
But when Reagan communicated, he was really just sharing a
very deeply felt connection with the people that he communicated with.
And that final letter about Alzheimer's was him empathizing with
(30:07):
the country that he knew cared about him and and
he wanted to comfort them us. And he wanted also
to let everyone know that if you live a life
that is consistently animated by the spirit of faith and
(30:29):
giving and service, then it will be okay.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Is it will be?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
It will be okay. And I think his letter was
it was an informing process, Rick, but it was also
a process of trying to comfort the country that he
cared so deeply about. You know, this book Cherish America
has stories about Reagan in it, but in some ways,
I mean, as you speak to me today and we
(31:00):
talk about Reagan on his birthday, I in fact, in
many ways, you know it, it's sort of lifting pieces
right out of the book because he he you know,
his he cherished America and and he believed that America
had made possible all the good things that he experienced
in life. And he really wanted to give that back,
(31:22):
uh in in in the course of his service to
California and this and his service to us as president.
But he also wanted to give it back at the
end of his life. You know, the the most I
guess influential people, uh in our lives are those that
try to be guides downstream toward the end of life,
(31:42):
show us how it's done. And you know, if if
any of the rest of us are afflicted by Alzheimer's,
I would say Reagan has showed us how it's done.
There is a nobility and a faith, and a strength
and a and a an other regarding way that you
that you confront challenges in life and even those that
happened toward the end of life. So again I would
(32:05):
only tell you that I think that letter was really
a letter compassionately written to the people, all of us
of America, so that we would understand that as far
as he was concerned, he was going to be Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
That's right, and he might as well have said, Bobby, sincerely, yours,
Ronnie and PS Cherish America. Right, that's right, Bobby Charles,
Thank you so much for joining us. Your book inspired
us to have this celebration today of President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
(32:43):
We appreciate you and love the book Cherish America. We
think it's the twenty twenty five version of Profiles and Courage,
and so many rich stories coming out of it. Thanks again,
my friend Rick.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Thank you and thanks for giving time to this. I
hope everybody enjoys the book. Stories are about many, many people,
and frankly, I hope people see reflections of themselves in
the stories.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
They will they will. Until next time, folks, we wish
you success on your way to significance, and remember to
cherish America.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
At Brad
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