lisa anderson contend that ronald reagan's call from the beginning of his presidency was to bring an end to the soviet union and believed the construction of nuclear weapons was tantamount and the subjective. this is about our. >> good evening. my name is mark. and the executive director of the reagan presidential foundation. i am also known as the lead ticket agent for air force one which has been cleared for boarding right out there. attughout rodriguez long career in public service he attractedu millions of supporters, on a hnds of friends, hundreds of loyal aides. only a handful of those who held his closest trust.ch in turn they devoted much ofevo their careers to helping him ing that association truly helps change our state, nation, and the world for the better. one of the indispensable people of reagan turned to throughout his career as it is with us

tonight. u staying in the continuing publid career, testify to what is is pe possible. talent and tenacity and the the determination to lead and noto d fall. george schultz knows much ofh trust and of, dedication and resolve. the top adviser to republican presidents. .. ide assumed a leadership capacity in the politics and foreign affairs. his is a quiet strength and quiet confidence and the steadfast reassurance and conservative ideas and beliefs allowed him to keep faith and trust as our secretary of state and america's first ambassador. and make no mistake, as we only now begin to fully chronicle the true story of how the cold war was won, let us remember this -- george schultz was surely one of the most important player. but there is another story also now just being told, of which george shut ss playing a

leadership role. as only he can. george shut schultz has liven the forward of a new volume "reagan's life in letters." "any close associate could see that ronald reagan waws deep and thoughtful man. people often speak about his steadfastness without quite realizing where it came from. he had steady purpose because he had deep convictions formed throughout his life. friends, members, and hon in order guests, on behalf of the reagan presidential library, it is my honor and privilege to present to you, our friend, george schultz. >> friends, admirers of ronald

reagan, it's quite a privilege to be here in this wonderful library and wondering around and sit in the chair where i used to sit and remembering all those wonderful things that fook place in the reagan administration. we're here to talk about remarkable book of letters written by ronald reagan and what they tell you about a truly great leader. but before i comment about the book, i want to say two other things. first of all, to nancy, many of the letters in this book and of course, the letters that you published earlier, the love letters, show how central you are and have been in his life. everyone could see the love and

the closeness. i found as i worked with ronald reagan and had opportunities to work with nancy that their thinking and their way of going about things was very parallel, and their styles in a special way had an uncanny recommend ambulance to each other. so -- has an an canny resemblance to each other. nancy was invited to the speak to the united nations about drugs. so she worked on her speech. she got a lot of advice from the people and bureaucracy that was working on it. and she had an idea of her own. "just say no." that is what was important.

what she wanted to tell the world when she spoke to the united nations, many things, but one of the things she wanted to say was we can well understand in the united states that if we're going to help you curtail the supply of drugs, we have to do something about the use of drugs in the united states. just say no. so the bureaucracy got a look at the speech and they said catastrophe. if she says that, inferring that it is the united states problem, nobody will ever cooperate with us anymore. and they moved heaven and earth to try to get her to change. i was sitting there applauding. i agreed with her. so i was happy to see how strong she was. just like ronald reagan. and so we go up to new york for the speech. and nancy says, when do you think we should get there?

i said you were scheduled to speak about 11:30. i said we'll g there about 11:00, 11:15. nan say says, no, if i want people to listen to me, i ought to go earlier and listen to them. what an unusual, refreshing comment. so we got there about 10:15, as i remember. plenty of time to thereon other people. the hall was practically empty. and i don't know whether you have ever had nancy with those big brown eyes look at you, and she said, "george, doesn't anyone want to hear what i have to say?" and so not knowing what i was talking about, i said, don't worry, nancy. everybody knows when you are going to speak. when you get ready to speak, the place will be jammed. and it was and she gave her speech beautifully. and at this place, the

convention was that if you sat in your seat and if anybody from another country wanted to say something to you, they came by your seat. well, the whole place came by her seat. and they all said, you know, it was so wonderful you said what you said and that you understand the nature of this problem. and it causes us to -- it will make us renew and reinforce our efforts, so it was just exactly the opposite reaction to what the bureaucracy had said. but again, it was very reaganesque. and so we see the closeness of these two people and it shines through the letters. and we all know it. then i would like to say a word about the editors who are sitting here. these are dedicated, skilled professional three people. i think the original discovery

of the essays in the earlier book that reagan in his own hand and came upon and ms. skinner had the sense to see that manuscripts in a carboard box and started reading them. you realize, hey, i'm reading something important here. and so this project has evolved. and marty and kyra have really worked through letters, stories, and these essays. occasionally one or the other will come into my office down at hoover and they're very excited. like a bunch of detectives. they found this letter and they've discovered a pen pal or whatever. and it's been fascinating to see this unfold and to see the work that they did to put this together. and i also commend to you when you start to read this book to

pick out a subject you're interested in and turn to it and then read the essays that the editors have written because they have worked hard to find the context for each letter, and they explain to you how this fits in and what was behind it and so on. and so it gives the letters much more meaning. so i want to say thank you to them for doing this terrific piece of work. [applause] now let me say a few words about what this book means as i see it. writing, the act of writing, reveals a lot. if you read things that somebody wrote extensively and we know

these things were written by ronald reagan -- this is what's driving people like the "new york times" nuts. they are all in his own handwriting. they can't say somebody else wrote it, but once somebody does that, you see their capacity to think. you see their capacity to clarify something. and you know yourself when you write something, you're educating the person who you think is on the receiving end, but if you're honest, you are educating yourself. the act of trying to explain something is very edge dational, particularly when you put it down on paper and write it out. all these letters reveal the thought process and the depth of ronald reagan. and when you see writings on the scale of his, these detectives over here, estimate they have

just begin to find the letter. there are a lot more out there. and they have told me they think there are probably some 10,000 letters by the time it all gets done. so this is on the scale of jefferson and adams and washington. and there is a time with all sorts of other ways of communicating that washington and jefferson and adams didn't have, so this is a tremendous output. and so it shows you a person with tremendous discipline to sit down and write and write and write. and it also shows you an instinct for reaching out to people, reaching out to them as people, not just arguing an issue in the kind of an abstract way, but interacting with the individual human being that wrote to you and you're answering that letter.

so the letters show many, many things about ronald reagan. one of the important ones that comes through to me is his instinct for the human being. human freedom was one of the great motivating beliefs that ronald reagan had. and let me just tell a story that illustrates this side of it. maybe many of you are not aware that the first deal ronald reagan did with the soviet union was a human rights deal. it involved getting the pentecostals, a religious group, i think five or seven of them had rushed into our embassy during the carter administration . and you couldn't expel them because you knew what the

soviets would do to them. and so they were sitting there and they were kind of a symbol of what's wrong with that system . and with me as kind of a midwife, i helped to arrange a meeting of the ambassador with president reagan. and it was a result of a dinner that you invited my wife and i to over in the white house one snowy evening. it was so snowy that the reagans couldn't get a chopper to take them to camp david. they couldn't get a car to take them to camp david, so they were stuck in the white house. our phone rang and they said, how about coming over for dinner. we had a wonderful time talking about one thing and another. i said to the president, hey, the ambassador is coming over to my office next tuesday, late afternoon, if you'd like to talk to him, i can stuff him in a car

and bring him over here. if you don't want people to know it, i can come in the east wing and go up to the family quarters and you can talk to him. he said that's great. it won't be very long because all i want to do is tell him if his new leader ready for a constructive dialogue, i'm ready. it will take me five minutes. one simple message. i said o cave. so over we come, and we were there for probably an hour and a half. and we wound up discussing every imaginable issue. i'm sure he was stunned to see how conversive the president was with all the issues and how able he was to argue this position and that position. but the most clear thing was the way he talked about human rights

. and he said repeatedly how can our countries really have a decent, constructive relationship with each other as long as you treat people the way you do? and he used as an illustration the pentecostals and here they are in our embassy and you should be ashamed. but it's telling the world what kind of a country you are. you ought to do something about it. so we were riding back to my office in the car and he said, well, the president was real -- maybe we should make that a project. ok. so a couple of weeks later, over comes a message from the soviets that sort of said if you get them out of the embassy, we'll let them handle, but if you had a lawyer handy, he would tell

you that message had so many holes you couldn't conceivably rely on it. we tried to tighten it up and explored it and finally concluded that with a discussion with the ambassador that if we could get them out of the embassy, probably they would recommend that. so we managed after a lot of pulling and hauling to get that done. and president reagan said to brennan and all along is all i'm interested in is getting them out of the embassy. and you get them out and i will not say a word about it. so the deal was you let them out and i won't crow. well, about two months after they left the embassy, they were fially allowed to immigrate, along with all their family, some 60 people in total.

and ronald reagan did not crow. it must have made a deep impression on the soviet union. they must have said to themselves, apparently this man really does care about human rights. it's not just a political gadget of some kind. and also they must have said to him, you can deal with this guy because he keeps his word even when it must be tremendously tempting to crow. he didn't. he kept his word. but anyway, the point that i'm trying to make sure and you see in it these letters is this intense feeling for the human

being. ronald reagan was known and is known for his strength of purpose and i think the letters show very clearly that the strength of purpose comes from a depth of thinking. if you have thought about an issue carefully and you understand the inner dynamics and you have come to a conclusion about it, then you're likely to stand firm and not compromise. because you understand where you're coming from. it comes from the inside out. it always seems to me and comes through so strongly in the letters that the strength of purpose came from a depth of thinking from the inside out. you're also -- he also knew how to give that to other people. and in visiting here, i was

reminded once again of what his desk looked like. and on it is a little metal thing that i remember so well, and it says -- and this is what greeted you when you came in. it says "there's no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." he lived by that. and a lot of us benefited from that and got more credit than we deserve. we saw that was a great motivating force. he also understood how helpful it can be sometimes if you are underrated. and when he first went to washington, no doubt just as when he went to sacramento, he was underrated. he liked that because while they were standing around underrating

him, he went by them and got all the stuff done. it was a great technique, but i would have to say now that the essays and stories and letters have been published and we can see in his own handwriting what depth, what sensitivity, what understanding he had, too bad it's not -- it's just not possible to understood rate you anymore, ronald reagan. mr. president, you're the tops. >> thank you, mr. secretary. it is now my pleasure to introduce the three editors whose tireless hours of dedication reviewing thousands of letters written over a

70-year period produced this work, reagan and a life of letters. mar tain anderson -- martin anderson. elise anderson, mr. anderson's better half. and kyra skinner, who is also a hoover institution fellow. before we begin the panel discussion, i would like them to briefly offer their comments about the new book. we'll start with marty. >> thank you. i guess the first point i would like to make is there were a large number of people involved in making this book. we worked on it for a couple of years and he -- we looked at thousands and thousands of letters, but many of the letters came from the reagan library. during the many years we worked ton book, the archivists were very helpful. the profession indianapolis were always gracious as they answered all our questions and requests. a special thanks goes to the

director of the library who was very helpful. second, ronald reagan's chief of staff was essential to the whole operation, helping us gain access to many of the collections and finding letters we haven't even thought about. and her counsel was invaluable. and the people we most hold responsible for the book on ronald is nancy reagan. and every step of the way she gave us full support and answered many questions. and as the many of us who came together, i remember spending one afternoon going over the letters and some of the letters, as you will see, are sensitive. but sesaid, i want people to know who ronnie is, so let's go ahead. and that is what we did. that is why this book tells us more about ronald reagan than any biography that has so far

been written. finally, we've all gotten so close to the book it that's difficult for us to talk about it objectively. so let me just read to you one of the many reviews that are beginning to emerge here in another country. this appeared two days ago on sunday in the "london telegraph." a review from across the atlantic. quote, "really there is a re-- rarely does a release of an archive or documents generally transform our understanding of an historic figure, but ronald reagan's extraordinary letters fall into this category. as governor of california and president, mr. reagan was often saluted as a the consummate performer and showman. what his correspondents dem -- what his correspondence demonstrates is he was a showman more than capeable of writing his own scripts. the stupid puppet of political satire melts away as one reads the sharp, well written, and

frequently witty letters. he takes the time to tell the boys, his consciousness about the hearing aides, how embarrassed he was when he first wore glazzes, muses on political science, every government service should be weighed against the cost of that service and loss of political freedom. and best of all n his letter from london in 1948, the cinema mogul jack l. warner, mr. reagan shows himself to be ascerbic. "the natives are friendly in a low, freezing way" he writes. what they do to food we did to the american indians. these letters are a true revelation. and what they reveal more than anything was that ronald reagan knew the value to a politician of never letting people never know quite how clever you are. >> thanks.

[applause] >> in 1981 when ronald reagan had assumed the presidency, a woman wrote to him and she had a lot of discipline. she complained about selling aircraft to the saudi. she complained about budgets. she complained about taxes. she complained about replacing china in the white house. and she said, i want to hear from president reagan personally. i demand to be heard. and this letter got to him because the staff selected, at his request, a sample of letters that he got every few weeks. and he answered her. and he said,s you specified that you wanted to hear from me personally, so here i am. and i think that's what most impresses me about this book. what i like the best about sit that i'm reading ronald reagan and what he said to a wide

variety of correspondence without filters or interpretation. this is ronald reagan himself. all the letters in the book are his own work. either written on yellow pads like this or the file letter and written and put in an envelope and sent to someone or dictated on a dictating machine. the correspondents are diverse. and they cover the people he met throughout his life from dixon, illinois, where he grew up to his career as a sports caster, as a radio announcer in des moines, iowa, hollywood, the general electric years when he was traveling and speaking around the country to many people and the governorship and presidency and afterwards. 45% of the letters are from before or after the presidency and about 55% are during the presidency, which is of course,

the most important time. but nevertheless, it is a wide range of family, friends, colleagues, politicians, american leaders, foreign leaders, and to me i think perhaps the most important letter he ever wrote to leon. they are written a span of 72 years. many are from right here in the reagan library, but many others are from other libraries and archives and personal collections that the people who hold the letters from him and possibly the copy of the letters to him and made strible us usually through copies including margaret thatcher, william f. buck lie, and people we were surprised were frequent correspondents, like retired

marine general writing columns for the news service named victor who was a good friend of reagan's. we're sometimes asked what is most surprising about the letters. and i think the sheer quantity and the discipline it represents , the fact that the letters are so beautifully written is -- and are fun to read is a continue wall pleasure, but the most overwhelming conclusion one has to come to, especially in the letters that he writes in office are that he's running things. he is planning the stratyi. he is directing. he's making a decision. so this is ronald reagan up close and personal. >> dr. skinner?

>> thank you. when i was searching around to think about what i could say, i thought i wanted to direct my comments to mrs. reagan and tell you a little bit of a back story about how all this came about. it was never really to happen, the books that the andersons and i have done in the past couple of years. and in the fall of 1995, mrs. reagan attended the conference in this very room that was open to the public, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the geneva conference and the first meeting that reagan had with gorbachev. and i attended that seminar and rushed up to her and said i would love to interview for my work. she says i don't allow interviews. but by christmas, i wrote her a long letter about my interest in studying the end of the cold war. and by the spring i had met her and she had granted me access to president reagan's papers for my work on the end of the cold war with the support of secretary schultz. and she's still asking for that

book. but along the way, i started finding thousands of pages of the president's writing and joined forces with the andersons. and that was really crucial that we came together on the work. and in each project, she would say, go ahead. and i was pretty nervous with the first one, the first book on reagan's radio essays. as we finished that book, i showethe andersons other writings by reagan and they had been effect clg some and marty said, let's put this in, but mrs. reagan, i'm not sure she will let us do it. we put in it and she supported the work and continued when we presented her with the letters idea. and i÷ that i think it's not just important for us that you've done this but really for the recovery of american history because to me the big theme of this book is that ronald reagan becomes so much more revelant in the 20th century than he would have been

without his words. perforce what a president does revelant but when you look at the sweep of his life, the many lives he touched, he continues to show up in decades where you think he's not a causal actor internationally and in the american scene. i'll give a couple of examples. i've done just scores of interviews in the past week and this is a time when his governorship is being looked at given what's going on in the state of california. it's been asked of me, well, he had no foreign policy credentials when he assumed the presidency. not many people know he made four mission as broad. one was when henry kissinger was visiting the people's

republic of china, reagan traveled add -- as governor of california to taiwan and other asian capitals to assure them that the nixon administration remained committed to friendship. the list goes on and during those years as governor he really began to build an international profile. none of that would have come forward if mrs. reagan hadn't entrusted to us the letters and all the documents we've used in the last couple of years and at least for me it was taking a big chance because you don't know me that well, exempt through secretary schultz, and i thank you -- except through secretary schultz, abandon i thank you very much. >> here is the first question for the panel. what do these letters reveal about the man? art, why don't you take a stab. >> i think a lot of it's been

said. i think one of the things that surprised me the most. i know i worked with him and traveled with him for almost four years -- we didn't realize the extent to which he was working when we all thought he was sleeping or watching television or something like that. we -- i don't know anyone that was with him that realized the extent of his readings, his understanding. one of the biggest surprises when we published all those radio essays he had written in the 1970's, it was a terrible shock to a lot of his advisors that all the things they were telling him to do, he had already studied and written about many years ago. they didn't know it at the time. but i think maybe the biggest surprise in the whole book, and annalise mentioned it, is the extent to which he was running things. he was in control. i've said it before, he was the toughest guy i ever worked for.

he was very, very nice. but just don't cross him and don't do what he doesn't want to do. he super imposes his values on the administration. >> i know you discovered a special relationship many people didn't know even existed. >> that was something we found in the archives that we've been able to confirm through what i call historical archeology, looking at the documents and interviewing people revelant to the documents during his administration, ronald reagan had an official pen pal, a young southeast d.c. boy, part of a white house initiative. reagan chose to have a pen pal as opposed to other things such as just visiting schools. they continued to write straight through the end of his

presidency and even a bit beyond. that young man is now 26 years old and -- and has spoken so glowingly of the president but the relationship evolved beyond the pen pal. reagan visited the school many times as did mrs. reagan and when i called you a couple weeks ago i promised to send you a picture of him there and i will send you that. rudy wrought president and said "i would very much like to have you to my house for dinner but you've got to let me know right away so that my mother can pick the clothes up off the floor," and his mother said she just about died because the letter got out before she had a chance to make the corrections. but they wanted this to be a

surprise. rudy wasn't supposed to know about it. he had to cut the dinner short because he to attend a michael jackson concert but that was a very important, i think, relationship because it just defies so much of the kind of expectations that people had about the president. when you read the correspondence, i think it stand out among all the letters in the book to be really genuine. it's not one talking down and one talking up to the other. issues of race sometimes emerge, but they're very candid with each other. reagan could be his grandfather, rudy could have been a grandson but she came together on just common ground of having basic interests. they talked about huck finn experiences. it's a great part of the book and speaks to his character. >> as far as i know, this pen

pal relationship is not known about. >> no. >> and it was uncovered by you all in doing this re -- research. so think back in your mind to a few presidents. and how many would have a pen pal relationship like this and not be trying to make political use tv? -- of it? it's sort of like the puente costal deal -- i'll let them out if you don't tell. and it shows a genuineness of the man. very deep, very important example. >> along those lines, annalise, you discovered a great many lines that talk to the president's faith and also his racial tolerance. do you want to share some of those experiences?

well, i think i'd rather talk about the brezhnev letter. >> okay. >> i think there are a great many letters in which reagan expressed his faith in god and his great concern about being considered bigoted. that upset him perhaps more than anything else and he responds to his critics very, very powerfully. but i think historically the letter -- the letter to brezhnev, it's extremely important and when he took noffs 1981 he received on march -- office in 1981 he received on march 6 through the state department channels a letter from leonid brezhnev and the state department went into full gear answering this letter. one of the drafts was returned by the national security council with reagan's approval

because it was undiplomatic, returned to the department of state, which was then headed by al haig. and by march 30, the day the president was shot, the letter had still not been answered. and while he was recovering, after -- on april 18 he was out of the hospital and back in the white house. he was sitting in the solarium p of still recovering from. assassination attempt. he took a yellow pad and drafted a letter to leonid brezhnev, the hea of the soviet union at the time. one of the things we discovered in our research was this handwritten draft which was -- has never before been found. we were really thilled to find that draft. he wrote that draft and dick allen had it typed up, his national security advisor, at

d.n.c. and tried to combine it with the state department draft but the president was not satisfied. this is an example of what marty was saying, that he imposed his own policies on the government. he didn't let -- i mean he decided what he wanted to do. and in the end, the draft from the state department was not combined with the president's draft. rather, the president wrote his own letter to brezhnev by hand and put it on top of the state department draft which also was typed and he also signed, and the letters were delivered via the soviet embassy and they got two letters, one handwritten which was very much like he -- what he drafted in the sol airium, and -- solarium and one typed. he made a couple points in the letter, two points he often made talking to soviet leaders

either in person or in writing, that the united states is not impeer al-istic -- imperialistic or aggressive and that what the leaders of the soviet union do matters to the people they are serving. he says "may i say there is absolutely no substance to charges that the united states is guilty of imperialism or attempts to impose its will on other countries by the use of force. the hopes and aspirations of millions of people throughout the world are dependent on the decisions reached by the leaders of the united states and the soviet union. people, he explains, want peace and the dignity of controlling their individual destinies and government exists for their convenience, not the other way

around. "mr. president, he says, speaking to brezhnev, should -- isn't it possible some of these obstacles are borne of government aims and golds which have little to with the real needs and wants of our people?" that's viewed add idealistic, yet at the same time he is building up -- as idealistic yet at the same time he ising about up the defense budget and writing to other people saying the soviets will come to the table when it's in their interests to do so. a fascinating insight into both his outreach toward people that you talk about and also his policy toward the soviet union. >> also his instinct about negotiation. >> yes. >> better to negotiate from a strong hand than a weak one. >> yes. >> one other point -- the

letter he sent and put on top was a lot different than the state department letter. >> yes, it was. >> second, until george schultz came in, they weren't working well together. >> i remember when i started in, somebody asked me about my foreign policy. i said i don't have one. president reagan has one. and it's my job to help him as i can to formulate it and carry it out. but it's the president's foreign policy. and it was, believe me. >> looking at the body of work over the 70 years, do you see a maturition of thought? -- malturation of thought? does -- maturation of thought? does the president changes hi viewpoints? >> one of the letters, this is one karen discovered, was written when he was 11 years old so i would say there is a maturation. >> the how so?

>> let me just say i've looked at all the whole sweep of the letters we have and it's clear that up until the beginning of world war ii he wasn't that interested in politics and i think that, we're speculating now but what this -- when he dame out of world war ii -- by the way, he was much more involved in world war ii than people realize, in terms of making films -- but he was very seriously concerned about what was going on in the world. you look at the movie magazines in 1946 and 19477 and -- 1947 and he's giving interviews about what's going on in the world. then his ideas were changing. basically there's one that it really explained -- after 1960,

very simply, he was critical of a letter written by an economist. he thought it was outrageous. you wrote to him, he wrote back. he wrote a six-page hand written letter which explained why his political views changed when he was head of the screen actors guild. he described what it was like to deal with communists, who did not negotiate like other people. they lied. they used force. he was even carrying a loaded revolver because they had threatened to though acid in his face. this was serious business. he -- it was that experience, in dealing with actual communists, that he said wait a win -- minute, they're saying

things but they don't mean it. >> take us through the early 1960's and -- >> his campaign for governor of california is really fascinating. i'll tell one example from the governorship, one from the presidency. early on during the campaign he had a lot to lose because he was in his mid 50's, an ex-actor, had never held a national political otches outside of being president of his union, the screen actors guild and one of the first charges leveled against him was that he was closely associated with the john birch society, which was viewed add anti-semitic and racist. in one of the first chad penningtonners, reagan writes -- and we did not come upon these files until very late in the process of putting our book together -- he writes about the john birch society and he says

i won't denounce the organization because i believe that all people and organizations have the right to have their viewpoint heard as long as they don't ing fringe on the rights of others -- infringe on the rights of others. that was a big risk for him to write that, to say it, to take that position, and he did. it showed early on a political inthstinct before he was elected governor of not letting preliminary expediency dominate principle. we see it again in the mid-1980's as president during the trip to germany in which he visited both the jewish concentration camp and the bitburg german military sem terry. there was a lot of opposition to him going to bitburg but he said, no, it's the right thing to go there and stand and say that the holocaust should not happen again and i'll do that

at both the german military cemetery and the concentration camp because i think many of the german soldiers were also victims of the system. >> you asked a fascinating question. one other quick comment. i've spent a lot of time looking back to see what policies he changed from when he was younger and i've found a lot of cases where he talks about a speck policy in the 1940's and 1930's and 1950's. as near as i can tell he never changed his view on what the policies should be, he just changed his party. [laughter] >> do you think the president ever intended these letters to be made public? do you think he'd be surprised at the interest that they're generating? i'd like all of your comments. >> i think that's a hard one, but in a way when i look at the

total book, what really emerges is that there's no spin in the letters. he tells it the way he sees it at every phrase of his life. so i think in this way this wolfpack is really reagan's own autobiography. it's completely in his words. we wrote around it but we couldn't come close to the work he did. he tells it the way he sees it and goes deeper in the letters than in public statements but he doesn't contradict his public persona at all. >> i remember one story somebody told me, one of the secretaries in the white house where when he came in and was writing on these yellow pads and they said look, you're the president now, we have to write on this acid-free paper because we're going to preserve these. and he said, "why would anyone want to read my words?" i don't think he paid any attention to the fact that these would someday be

published. he was writing the letters, he had a reason, he was talking to people and he probably wouldn't let us publish them if we asked him. >> following up on that quickly, here's a man who had mastered radio, television, and cinema, yet he uses a very old-fashioned way to communicate. was that being old-fashioned or something very forward-thinking? >> you know, a number of people have asked us about the alzheimer's letter, his final goodbye letter, the letter to the nation and so much of the attention since that time has been in the fact that he revealed he was suffering with a disease. but when you think about it his first job after college was as a radio announcer. he mastered television. but he chose to say goodbye in a letter and i think that's how

he felt most comfortable revealing himself. he chose a letter. he could have had a radio spot, could have gone on television, but he chose to say goodbye that way and after he wrote that letter in november 1994 he was flooded with letters from well-wishers all over the world and he sat down one more time, and this letter isn't known but joanne drake made it available to us and i thank herks he wrote one more letter by hand to his well-wishers and it was reproduced and sent professionally all over the place. i think letter writing was the way he felt most comfortable. >> he was also a pretty good speaker, though. >> i think there is an answer to that and it came from nancy. i asked her one time, why did he write all these letters? and the answer was he liked to write. >> we can take a few questions from the audience if you come

to the microphones which are in the middle of thiles. -- thiles. -- aislis. >> good evening, mrs. reagan. i just wonder in the face of our rather overregulated educational system we feel -- seem to be faced with today if you feel that this wonderful book could someday become a textbook at the university or prep school level. >> i don't think that this is a textbook that deals one topic systematically, but i think it is an enormously accessible resource on the character and history and policies of an enormously important president because if you look at the history of the 20th century, it really is the success of our form of government and free

markets and democracy over totaltarian forms of government, communism and fascism and reagan was. while that happened. there are a lot of other people, of course and stead fasth policies in the united states to contain and control communism. he believed that we could win, and we did. and he won the cold war. so what he's like, what he thought about, who he communicated with, is of extraordinary importance. and this contributes to that history. >> yeah. let me speak to the question about will this book be used. a -- if a few weeks ago you had told me that this book would be featured on the "this week on sunday" program, 4 5 minutes, if you had told me "the new york times" was going to have an editorial, saying "reagan, a man in letters," i'd say you're

crazy. look, this is beginning to make an impact. scholars, especially historians, are going to have to think very carefully about what they have written because it doesn't work. you can start -- find hundreds of books on ronald reagan that start from premises that are simply not connect -- correct. that's one thing carin told me about historians. now it's not that far-fetched. even if people don't like ronald reagan, they want to understand how he did what he did. >> i will add that if any of you out there would like to partner with the reagan foundation we would be sure every university got a copy of his book. [applause] next question? >> any interesting comments

from any of the current political figures out there to any of you since you've been doing this? >> only political figure i see is pete wilson. >> it's a little early. i have, at least i haven't talked to anyone yet. >> another question? well, i've got one. what do we learn from this book that we didn't already know about ronald reagan? >> well, let me -- do you want to -- >> well, i've -- the extent to which he was the decision maker. directing, deciding. that's what i think. >> i will say, look, george worked for him many more years than i did, but we wrked for him for four years and traveled with him. i wrote a book about him. i thought i knew him. until i read these letters,

when i finished reading the letters i realized that we didn't know just how great he was. we didn't know the full extent of what he was doing. because when he went back to his room at night a lot of us thought he was sleeping or watching television or whatever and we did not know that he was reading and he was writing. >> can you help the audience in terms of how to approach a work like this that is so vast, almost 1,000 pages? what's the best way to? >> i think george schultz had the best way. >> here's my suggestion. start at the table of contents. and look and find a subject that intrigues you. that you'd like to pursue. then flip open to that page. and read the essays that the editors have provided that give

a sense of the setting, what is the setting into which this letter fits, so you have a grasp of that, and then start reading the letters and just sort of pick at them and you'll find yourself intrigued. you'll have a hard time because you'll turn the page and there will be another all right. i was just picking it up and looking at it a little while ago and ran across this letter where he's explaining to somebody named ron, of all names, how he got into radio broadcasting, how he wound up in hollywood, and reflecting on what happens to you in life and how you move around. and one of the things that i saw from that is he was not a passive man. he went out after things and struggled for them and also

knew how to take advantage of a good break. but anyway, the way i would go about this book is start with the topic you're interested in. don't go to the first page. pick a topic that interests you. and then turn to it, get the context from the essays that are there and then just start leafing through and it's fun, rearview mirror it's fun. >> that's the key. it's fun. >> have the writers had the opportunity to meet the whole -- the little boy with the correspondence in did you think he'll be bringing out the book of correspondence? >> i found him in december and i have interviewed him and his mother and the school principal who helped orchestrate the relationship. he's still living in the washington, d.c., area and

works in his neighborhood. he has not gone to college yet. i think the relationship with president reagan worked so well because he and his family never so the to -- sought to take advantage of it or capitalize on the relationship. they've kept copies of the letters safely and don't intend to sell them or publish them in any way. we've --le entry did for -- the interview he did for george steph anopoulos's program was not aired and i was deeply regretful about that. i asked him why he should shall -- stopped writing and he said at the end of his presidency he felt he did not want to intrude on his privacy