Republicans idolize Ronald Reagan. Their candidates have used his library as a debate location and photo opportunity back drop. Even my choice for President, Barack Obama, has evoked the former president’s name.
But I have different memories of the Gipper.
In 1983, while Reagan was President, I joined the U.S. Army motivated by desire to defend freedom and democracy.
What I witnessed was disgusting. Reagan spent billions of U.S. tax dollars to fund terrorist’s like Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, death squads that murdered nuns and priests in Central America and ruthless dictators like Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Weapons were even being illegally funneled to our enemies in Iran.
People think 5% unemployment is bad now. How about 10.8% under Reagan, the worst since the Great Depression. Reagan more than quadrupled the national debt and set records for farm foreclosures, S&L bank failures, and number of administration officials indicated for serious crimes.
It is hard to believe but the U.S. once had a trade surplus, $2 billion the year Carter left office. With Reagan trade deficits exploded to $124 billion in 1985. Under Reagan environmental laws were gutted, unions crushed and the middle class lost half its buying power. My Uncle Bill was a union steam fitter in Des Moines, IA when Reagan worked for WHO radio there. Uncle Bill told me stories about how Reagan was a big partier, womanizer and boozer in those days - which is his own business except that Reagan had a mean modus operandi for sexual conquest.
Reagan would talk women into letting him drive them home, then force his way on them when they got to their place. In todays vernacular we call this "date rape". My uncle was an honest man but I don't rely solely on his description of Reagan's life during this period. Kitty Kelly outlines this dating practice in her biography of Nancy Reagan, even interviewing one of Reagan's victims, Selene Walters.
Apparently Reagan's womanizing continued from his early days leading to his divorce from Jane Wyman and estrangement from his own children.
Considered his crowning achievement, Reagan’s handling of the Cold War was actually a grand failure. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev was increasing freedom and openness. Gorbachev’s goal was to move the USSR toward the “Swedish Model” of democratic socialism. The USSR could have emulated successful Scandinavian countries. Instead the USSR succumbed to Reagan-sponsored terrorism and today people of the former Soviet republic live under ruthless dictators like Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan.
After WW II Reagan assisted efforts to bring former Nazi’s and European fascists to the U.S. and consulted with them frequently as President. In 1985 Reagan traveled to Bitburg, Germany to lay a wreath at the graves of 49 Nazi Waffen SS officers.
I can’t help believing in the after life Reagan is now with those Nazi SS he admired so much.
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