A Conversation with Reagan

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Ronald Reagan was talking about changing American politics for generations. "A political party isn't a fraternity," he said. "It isn't something like the old school tie that you wear. You band together in a political party because of certain beliefs of what Government should be. Now, if Democrats have come to believe in the same things Republicans believe in, then there should be an amalgam of those two elements of the parties." Shades of F.D.R., who once secretly communicated with Wendell Willkie about changing the parties into conservatives and liberals.

A slight smile, the soft, husky Reagan voice. Almost gentle. And yet a bugle call of sorts for 1984. Reagan's enthusiasm grew as he got into his subject. His color heightened. He leaned forward from his couch and worked his hands. Far below his 26th-floor hotel room, the hubbub of the Republican National Convention was rising in anticipation of his acceptance speech that night. Reagan already was far beyond that in his mind, building "America's party" and an "opportunity society."

"In a way there is a realignment, except that people have retained their party allegiances," Reagan said. "I understand that, having been a Democrat and changed. I can tell you how traumatic it was when it actually came down to reregistering and saying, 'I am a member of another party.' I talked myself into it.

"When I voted in 1932 for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democratic platform pledged a 25% cut in federal spending, and he campaigned on a return of authority to the people who had lost it to the Government. I went on and was a loyal Democrat. But on the mashed-potato circuit I began to talk more and more about how Government had expanded and was infringing on liberties and interfering with private enterprise. One day I came home from a speaking tour, and I said to Nancy, 'I go out there and make these speeches, which I believe, and then every four years I find myself campaigning for the people who are doing the things I'm speaking against.' And I said, 'I'm on the wrong side.' " Reagan rates this election as "historic" in its potential for political change, but it is not the same as 1932, which ushered in F.D.R. and 20 years of Democratic power. "I don't think we have the trauma," he said. "I got out of school in 1932 and was looking for my first job in the very depths of the Great Depression, with 26% unemployed, the Government putting ads on radio telling people not to leave home looking for work because there was none. And there were none of the safeguards then."

To achieve a lasting realignment, the Great Communicator must become the Great Persuader. Reagan confesses he has no particular plan for digging out the Democrats who may have begun to doubt their party. "I haven't thought of any great movement to bring that about," he said. "But it is happening increasingly. You saw a Democrat speaking at the Republican National Convention--Jeane Kirkpatrick. We have seen some of our Congressmen change. One of them, Phil Gramm from Texas, realized he could no longer follow the leadership of his party. I thought it was significant in the '76 primaries when Democrats could vote in a Republican primary and vice versa--I won those states.

"What you do is keep enunciating the principles that we believe in and don't shut the door to these other people but keep asking, 'Can you continue to support your party?' "

Reagan is flushed with success and adoration, cocooned in power, presiding over the most affluent, the best-dressed, most privileged group of political activists ever assembled. What about a poverty-ridden young black in a ghetto with no father, ono money, no education, no hope?

Reagan's smooth brow furrowed. A shadow crossed his eyes. "I know that this is oversimplification," he said, "but it's the only way to answer the question. Basically the Democratic Party has said, 'We'll take care of you. We'll see that you have food and shelter.' But then what is he? He is as beholden to that Government institution as he was beholden in slavery to the fellow who lived in the big house on the hill.

"Our party is saying to them: We want equality of opportunity. The only barrier will be within yourself as to your own ability to achieve your dreams. And I think this is what they want. I think the minorities have far more to gain from the Republican Party. We're the ones who want them to fly as high and far as they can on their own ability."

If there is to be a Republican dynasty ahead in the White House it is Reagan's belief it will rest on a healthy economy. The G.O.P. will gain strength "if we're successful in what we're trying to accomplish, and we've been successful so far--this recovery is evidence of that. I'm sorry, I said 'recovery.' I've had economists tell me that I should be calling it an 'expansion.' We're past the recovery stage. But if we are, then I think the pattern is set for the next election as well."

There he sits, just one elderly human being in a vast global arena, but with more power than any other single person and with most of the burden of mankind's freedom assigned to him for safekeeping. He has fought bloody diplomatic and legislative battles for nearly four years, and has been excoriated by the Democrats from dawn to dark for the past month, yet the polls show he is liked more than ever by Americans. Why?

Reagan ducked his head, paused for a moment. "I don't really know," he said, "unless maybe--maybe the people have a way of sensing that I like them. And I do. I don't know how anyone could be in this business and not like people. And yet I know a lot of politicians, maybe out of fear, who look on people as adversaries, they don't like them."

If he had the Democrats in mind, Reagan did not say. But he had noticed the new Democratic emphasis on home and community. He was watching television, he said, as Walter Mondale gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. When Mondale reached the heights of his eloquence about flag, family and fiscal restraint, Reagan said, he turned to Nancy and asked, "Didn't I write that?"