How to Leave Them Cheering

With an actor's skill, he gave the performance of his life

The pleasant man might have been talking across the backyard fence or maybe chatting in the kitchen with the kids. He seemed relaxed and natural, but he was addressing millions of viewers and making the most important--and very likely the best--speech of his career. Ronald Reagan masterlily delivered his acceptance address, an event that may turn out to be pivotal to his campaign. He performed with a skill that surprised even his admirers and dismayed his foes, smoothly repackaging phrases and lines from speeches he has been making for months. In text and delivery, he accomplished what he had set out to do: appear presidential, project a concern for all Americans, appeal to the moderates he must convince in order to win, reassure those who fear he may be too quick on the trigger.

Reagan managed to make all his usual criticisms of Jimmy Carter, liberalism and the welfare state without being shrill or strident. There was scarcely an echo of Barry Goldwater's like-it-or-lump-it 1964 campaign oratory, though many of the ideas were the same. He was pungent without being pugnacious. Big Government, he warned, is "never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us ... High taxes, we are told, are somehow good for us, as if, when Government spends our money, it isn't inflationary, but when we spend it, it is ... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our Government back under control." Reagan even quoted an attack on Big Government from Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, though that was an awkward reach even for a candidate striving for Democratic votes.

Reagan emphasized that a Government reduced in size would help all Americans who share a "community of values," a belief in family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom. Creating new jobs was vital. "Thanks to the economic policies of the Democratic Party, millions of Americans find themselves out of work ... It's time to put America back to work ... For those without skills, we'll find a way to help them get new skills. For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live."

When the Carter Administration imposes the biggest tax hike in history and informs people they must do with less, asked Reagan: "Have they thought about those who've always had less, especially the minorities? This is like telling them that just as they step on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity, the ladder is pulled out from under them." The Republicans' message will be different: "We have to move ahead, but we're not going to leave anyone behind. I ask you to trust that American spirit which knows no ethnic, religious, social, political or economic boundaries; the spirit that burned with zeal in the hearts of millions of immigrants from every corner of the earth who came here in search of freedom."

Said Richard Whalen, a conservative adviser who contributed ideas to the address: "I've never seen a Republican speech with so many references to people and jobs." Those un-Republican references bothered some Democrats. Warned Massachusetts State Representative William Galvin: "Instead of bemoaning what Government does to business, Reagan attacked what Government is doing to people. It's a strategy, and one which, as a Democrat, frightens me."

As in the past, Reagan called for a more vigorous foreign policy. While our adversaries test our resolve, he said, "we are given weakness when we need strength, vacillation when the times demand firmness." The response of the Carter Administration to these challenges is not " 'Should we do something?' but 'Do we have the capacity to do anything?' " At the same time, Reagan stressed the President's responsibility to work for peace. "We're not a warlike people. Quite the opposite ... We resort to force infrequently, and with great reluctance--and only after we've determined that it is absolutely necessary."

The speech was carefully written to contrast with harsher Reagan efforts in the past. Chief Speechwriter Peter Hannaford tried to make it as moderate as possible without slighting any of Reagan's lifelong concerns. Various aides contributed to the first draft, which was given to the candidate on July 1. He took it along on his Mexican vacation and sent back a corrected version five days later. Hannaford says that Reagan has a special knack for getting to the point without wasting words. "I look at a cut he has made and think, 'Hey, why didn't I think of that?' " Reagan made one of his most important changes following the fight that resulted in removing the ERA plank from the party platform. After meeting with a group of Republican women, Reagan decided to add a passage assuring equality for women. Delivering the speech, Reagan did not use his usual crutch: his famed 4-in. by 6-in. index cards. Instead he read from a TelePrompTer that displayed the words on transparent glass. Another TelePrompTer was available, and Reagan had a typewritten copy of the speech in case anything went wrong.

The veteran actor had even carefully prepared for the most moving moment in his speech: the request at the end for a pause for silent prayer. The request was in an early version of the speech, then dropped, then Reagan decided to keep it after all. Still, he knew that it would not work if the crowd had lost interest by that point. So he had Hannaford type the request for the prayer on two half sheets of paper, in extra-large type, which he kept handy for use if the hall was quiet. The audience was very attentive as the end drew close, so Reagan decided to risk the request for the prayer that turned out to be so effective.

Indeed, the entire speech sounded as though it were delivered off the top of Reagan's head, that the thoughts had just occurred to him and, darn it, he was going to share them with his friends all over America. Said Wisconsin's Republican Governor Lee Dreyfus, a Ph.D. in communications: "I'd give him an A if he were in my class." That was the mark generally awarded Reagan, even on a bipartisan basis. Said Theodore Sorensen, who helped draft John Kennedy's 1960 Inaugural Address: "Reagan tried to make the tent he was constructing large enough to hold a significant portion of the population, and I think he did it." Iowa's G.O.P. Governor Robert Ray, who has been cool to Reagan in the past, called the address "dynamite. He touched the soul of America. He's off to a flying start.'' qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.