The Reagan Years: a Social History of the 1980’S

By Richard Stanley

Ronald Reagans legacy as president is nearly unparalleled in American history due to his domestic and foreign policy leadership. Reagans contrarian insistence on advocating limited government and supply-side economics drew much bipartisan criticism, causing the Great Communicator to take his argument that lowering taxes would encourage economic growth directly to the people. The result? Congress granted $750 billion in tax cuts in 1981. The Reagan Revolution had begun. By mid-1983, the nations economy was booming.

On President Reagans first day in office, the Iran Hostage Crisis finally came to an end. Fifty-two American embassy personnel held hostage by a defiant Iran during the last four hundred-plus days of the Carter administration were freeda definite win for all Americans. But Reagan soon was widely criticized for insulting Russias leaders by calling the Soviet Union the evil empire. Later, Reagan was criticized at home and abroad for challenging Soviet premier Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

Reagans most criticized proposal of all, however, was his insistence on developing his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)space weapons to defend America from incoming Soviet nuclear missiles. Domestic critics dismissed his proposal as a Star Wars fantasy (but the Soviets feared SDI). By December 1991, it was clear that Reagans Star Wars fantasy helped cause the bankruptcy and total collapse of the Soviet Union, bringing a peaceful end to the decades-long Cold War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532037719

Richard Stanley

Dr. Stanley earned masters degrees from Long Beach State and Whittier College and an Ed.D. from Pepperdine University. He taught American History and Government at the high school and adult school levels before becoming a high school administrator. He recently retired after many years as a successful adult school principal. Dr. Stanley has authored ten books on history and politics, and has also taught at the university level. Also by Richard T. Stanley, Ed.D. Lessons of American History A Humorous Account of Americas Past: 986 to 1898 A Humorous Account of Americas Past: 1898 to 1945 A Humorous Account of Americas Past: 1945 to 2001 The Eisenhower Years: A Social History of the 1950s Freedom, Common Sense, and the Nanny State The Psychedelic Sixties: A Social History of the United States, 1960-69 Americas Favorite Holidays Disco Days: A Social History of the 1970s

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Copyright © 2017 Richard Stanley.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-3770-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3771-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date:   12/12/2017

Also by Richard T. Stanley, Ed.D.

Lessons of American History

A Humorous Account of America’s Past: 986 to 1898

A Humorous Account of America’s Past: 1898 to 1945

A Humorous Account of America’s Past: 1945 to 2001

The Eisenhower Years: A Social History of the 1950’s

Freedom, Common Sense, and the Nanny State

The Psychedelic Sixties: A Social History of the United States, 1960 – 69

America’s Favorite Holidays

Disco Days: A Social History of the 1970’s

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my granddaughter

Charlotte Layne Stanley

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter One -   Billy Beer Vs. Bedtime For Bonzo: The Election Of 1980

Chapter Two -   There’s No Business Like Show Business!

Chapter Three -   The Boob Tube

Chapter Four -   Take Me Out To The Ball Game …

Chapter Five -   The Reagan Revolution

Chapter Six -   Life After Football

Chapter Seven -   A Love Story

Chapter Eight -   The Written Word

Chapter Nine -   Star Wars

Chapter Ten -   Gays, Guns, And God

Chapter Eleven -   Reading, Writing, And Arithmetic

Chapter Twelve -   Music … Music … Music …

Chapter Thirteen -   Rawhide’s Ranch

Chapter Fourteen -   Tragedy And Scandal

Chapter Fifteen -   Bush Vs. Dukakis

Chapter Sixteen -   1989

Epilogue

Bibliography

PREFACE

The Reagan Years is the fourth volume in a sequential series of books I have written about the social history of the United States during the latter half of the 20th Century. My first volume of the series, The Eisenhower Years, provides an overview of the so-called Fabulous Fifties – especially the years 1953 through 1959. As a curious boy of twelve during the summer and fall of 1952, I remember sitting in front of our family’s living room TV set listening to witty speeches by Adlai E. Stevenson and observing huge, enthusiastic crowds of people shouting I Like Ike! on our 18" black-and-white screen. For me, the presidential campaign of 1952 sparked a life-long interest in politics. Back in 1952, I liked Ike; my parents were both solidly behind Stevenson. I suppose I have been somewhat of a family contrarian ever since.

Growing up during the Eisenhower Years, I watched as America led the Free World against the threat of global communism. I recall Elvis Presley’s TV debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was among the first fortunate recipients of the Salk anti-polio vaccine. I was a senior at David Starr Jordan High School in Long Beach, California, when President Eisenhower ordered federal troops to help integrate Little Rock High School in September 1957. For most Californians, Little Rock High School probably seemed far, far away. For me, however, it was still just down the street from where I had once lived. My parents and I had briefly moved from Long Beach, California to Little Rock, Arkansas when I was eight. Back in the spring of 1949, many of Little Rock’s finest were still fighting the War Between the States – known to us Yankees as the American Civil War. Obviously, things still hadn’t changed a whole lot back there by the fall of 1957.

It was also during the fall of 1957 that another highly memorable event for me occurred. On October 4th, I was sitting in Mr. Switzer’s high school physics class when another teacher burst into our classroom and announced to all of us the shocking news that the Russians had just beaten us into outer space by launching Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. Suddenly, the study of physics seemed all the more relevant.

While not every world event during the Fabulous Fifties favored America’s best interests, the Eisenhower Years were, nevertheless, highly productive and fascinating times. In most fields of human endeavor, Americans innovated while the rest of the world imitated. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower kept us out of war. And he was wise enough to stay out of the way of our artists and entrepreneurs, while, at the same time, he was the driving force behind America’s first national highway system. Little wonder why his years in office are still remembered by many of us old-timers as those Happy Days.

My second book about America’s social history during the second half of the 20th Century is entitled The Psychedelic Sixties.

I was nineteen years old and a sophomore history major at Long Beach State College (soon to be renamed California State University at Long Beach) on January 1, 1960. That particular New Year’s Day still stands out in my memory for what happened on a famous football field in nearby Pasadena, California. On that very special sunny afternoon in Pasadena, a one-eyed junior quarterback for the University of Washington Huskies named Bob Schloredt led his underdog team to a one-sided 44 to 8 victory over the heavily-favored Wisconsin Badgers in the Rose Bowl before 100,000 shocked spectators and millions more watching on national TV. Being a West Coast football fan, I became increasingly ecstatic as the game progressed to its splendid conclusion. Why so ecstatic? Except for January 1953, when USC defeated Wisconsin 7 to 0 in the Rose Bowl, Big Ten teams had won every Rose Bowl game dating back to 1947, when I was just six years old. To paraphrase the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, West Coast football got NO RESPECT! Following the Husky’s blowout of the Badgers in the 1960 Rose Bowl, many sensed a new era was about to begin. But no one I knew at the time had a clue about how many changes of all sorts – not just in football – would soon profoundly affect our lives in the coming years.

On the very next day, January 2, 1960, United States Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Having read his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, and having seen him several times before on television, I was intrigued by his idealism, his apparent youthful energy, and his family’s obvious wealth and political connections. Then, exactly one week later, on January 9th, President Eisenhower’s young Vice President from California, Richard M. Nixon, announced his candidacy for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Richard Nixon’s candidacy came as no surprise to me; a potential title for a book I might write if Nixon won in 1960 had already formed in my mind: From Whittier to the White House. Regardless, as a history major and a political science buff, I became excited about the upcoming 1960 presidential campaign. Frankly, to me at least, both leading candidates for their respective party’s nomination seemed reasonably qualified to become the next President of the United States. And, while the continuing challenges of the Cold War – the USSR and Communist China vs. the United States and our European Allies – remained omnipresent, most people I was familiar with that January seemed optimistic about America’s future – regardless of who was elected president that November. Certainly, I knew of no one who accurately predicted the radical cultural shifts, the bloody race riots in the North and far West, the anti-Vietnam War protests across the land, the rampant drug usage, and the many other examples of social mayhem that would soon rock American society and change us forever. Who knew then that the Eisenhower Years of America’s Happy Days, steady-as-you-go, conformist mentality would soon morph into the helter-skelter crazy quilt of idealism, radical thought, and antiestablishment behavior that may best be described as the Psychedelic Sixties?

1961 began on a high note with President John F. Kennedy’s stirring Inaugural Address and his soon-to-be-launched Peace Corps. However, President Kennedy’s New Frontier soon faced grave challenges as the result of the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, the rapid construction of the Berlin Wall by the East Germans beginning in August 1961, and, most ominous of all, the Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union during October 1962. I was in basic training with the U.S. Army at Fort Ord, California during the Cuban Missile Crisis. To those of us who were issued weapons and ammunition, it was certainly no joke. But President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963 hit most people I knew the hardest of all. Personally, I was purchasing some pastries at Fritz Nichol’s Bakery on Pacific Avenue in Long Beach when I first heard the news that our president had been shot. The ladies in the bakery were all crying.

President Lyndon Johnson valiantly tried to heal our nation’s wounds through his Great Society programs. For a while, he seemed to be succeeding. But his landslide victory in the Election of 1964 was short lived. Soon, his so-called Great Society toppled as the result of our nation’s enormous losses in blood, trust, and treasure. Meanwhile, I was personally involved in a variety of occupations, including college student, restaurant worker, army reservist, department store assistant manager, and ultimately, high school civics teacher, activities director, and varsity tennis coach. While a number of my own friends were killed in Vietnam during the late 1960’s, including several of my former civics students, I was fortunate to spend my army service on weekends in Long Beach and in simulated infantry battles for two weeks each summer at Camp Roberts, California. I managed to not only survive, but thrive during those turbulent years of the Psychedelic Sixties.

By the time Richard Nixon became our president in January 1969, I was a twenty-eight year old bachelor with a job I loved, a new sports car, a nifty apartment in a relatively new, large, and nicely landscaped complex with lots of single female neighbors. Who could have asked for more? Besides, I’ve been told that some of my female neighbors even practiced that Hippie motto, If it feels good, do it!

Enough of the 1960’s. My third book is entitled Disco Days: A Social History of the 1970’s. Just as the Psychedelic Sixties were about much more than Hippies and the use of mind-altering drugs, and free love, calling the decade of the 1970’s Disco Days should not imply that all Americans were constantly going from club to club dancing to disco music. Nevertheless, many historians still associate the 1920’s in America with a dance craze known as The Charleston. Well, Disco Dancing was at least as popular during the 1970’s as The Charleston was during the Jazz Age of the 1920’s. Besides, many of us who were young adults during the 1970’s have many fond memories of our Disco Days.

Politically, the decade of the 1970’s was a time of firsts, including:

• First Vice President to resign in disgrace (Spiro Agnew).

• First President to resign in disgrace (Richard Nixon).

• First administration with an unelected President (Gerald Ford) and Vice President (Nelson Rockefeller).

• First President from the Deep South since the Civil War (Jimmy Carter).

• First President born in a hospital (Jimmy Carter).

Militarily, the decade of the 1970’s was marked by the culmination of the unpopular war in Vietnam, the eventual fall of Saigon, and the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Socially, the decade of the 1970’s witnessed many changes in the attitudes, habits, and morals of most Americans. Such changes included my falling in love with and marrying a bright and beautiful college junior who was once a student of mine in one of the high school classed I taught back in 1969. (Diawn and I are still happily married and are both retired school principals). Less personal, other significant changes included advances in the racial integration of both African-Americans and Hispanics, plus a huge influx of Asian immigrants, the sudden popularity of new synthetic double-knit fibers used to make shirts, coats, and pants for both sexes, wide-spread school reforms (especially in the training of teachers through professional development programs), a highly noticeable relaxation of censorship in motion pictures and television, and a growing emphasis on the importance of college degrees as prerequisites for employment and advancement. Manufacturing, once the business of corporate America, was increasingly being outsourced to underdeveloped countries with plentiful supplies of cheap labor. As a result, made in USA labels were rapidly disappearing from a wide variety of consumer goods. Fewer and fewer farm families continued to produce more and more food for America and the world. Following the 1960’s invasion by The Beatles, English-born musicians continued to strike it rich in America. And popular works of fiction, from Love Story to Jaws, continued to appeal to Americans by the millions. And what red-blooded American boy or girl, young or old, failed to fall in love during the 1970’s with a cartoon strip called Peanuts?

Meanwhile, on a more personal note, my wife graduated from college with honors and began working full-time as a high school history teacher at the tender age of twenty. She also served as the school’s pep squad advisor, and began working on a master’s degree. I landed a job as a high school guidance administrator, earned a second master’s degree (School Counseling), taught university extension classes part-time in education and psychology, became an adult school administrator, and eventually, in 1979, was named Coordinator of Research, Planning, and Evaluation for my school district. That was also the year I began working on a doctorate in Institutional Management. In our spare time, Diawn and I also bought and remodeled a fixer-upper in a nice Long Beach neighborhood for our first home, doing most of the work ourselves. My wife did take off work for part of a semester when our first son was born on July 26, 1977. Crazy, huh?

The Reagan Years, my fourth book in this series of social histories (and my tenth book overall), begins during the final days of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Billy Beer Scandal – both key factors in the defeat of President Jimmy Carter in the Election of 1980. Ronald Reagan was nearly fourteen years older than Jimmy Carter. In 1940, when Jimmy Carter was just beginning his senior year at Plains High School in rural Georgia, Ronald Reagan was already an established Hollywood movie star. In hindsight, especially when considering the fact that President Reagan became so popular that he easily defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale by sweeping forty-nine of the fifty states when he ran for reelection in 1984, it seems reasonable to assume that candidate Reagan was a shoe-in to defeat the not-so-popular President Carter in 1980. Not so. Reagan had his own detractors at the time. Even after serving two terms as Governor of California, many Americans living outside the Golden State still remembered Ronald Reagan primarily for his starring roles in such Hollywood films as Knute Rockne – All American and Bedtime for Bonzo, which caused many folks to question his ability to become the leader of the Free World. After all, many concluded, Deep Down, Reagan is still just an actor. Many rather cynical voters who went to the polls in November 1980 believed they were stuck with a choice between Bedtime for Bonzo (Reagan) or Billy Beer (Carter). A majority crossed their fingers and chose Bonzo. Only months later were most of them assured that they had made the right choice.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised the voters that, if elected, he would bring the hostages home from Iran, curb inflation, cut taxes, reduce welfare, restore economic growth and prosperity while shrinking Washington’s bureaucracy, and, above all, keep his fellow Americans safe and free by strengthening our military. Once elected, President Reagan brought to Washington, D.C., in particular, and to the nation in general, the realization that government is often the problem, not the solution. He reinforced our Founding Fathers’ belief in limited government and free-enterprise capitalism. And he kept his campaign promises, even in spite of vocal opposition from some members of his own political party regarding supply-side economics, and especially his claim that reducing federal taxes would ultimately increase the government’s revenues. Many conservatives, as well as most progressives, claimed such nonsense was simply voodoo economics. Reagan soon proved them wrong.

Back on March 25, 1980, exactly 140 days after our embassy personnel in Tehran were taken hostage by Iranian militants, our second son, Jason, was born. The day we brought him home from the hospital, we placed him on our big bed, propped him up with pillows, and brought our two-and-one-half-year-old son, Richie, to meet his new brother for the first time. Without prompting, Richie crawled across our bed and gave Jason a big hug and a kiss on his cheek. At that moment, in spite of all of President Carter’s vexing problems, including his own brother Billy’s Billy Beer Scandal, all seemed well with the world.

By the latter half of 1983, many of our nation’s former problems were nearly forgotten. President Reagan’s so-called voodoo economics proposals had turned out to be little voo and much do. Stocks were up, inflation was down, jobs were plentiful, and even journalists began to call Ronald Reagan The Great Communicator.

It seems ironic that the one idea Ronald Reagan continued to receive heavy criticism for during the remainder of his administration, Star Wars, was perhaps his greatest triumph. Reagan’s persistent demands for a costly anti-missile defense system requiring Star Wars technology spawned ridicule at home, but terror amongst the Russians. Russia’s leadership took him seriously. So seriously, as many historians claim, that the Soviet Union became bankrupt trying to keep pace. Soon after Ronald Reagan left office, the Soviet Union totally collapsed. Should good acting skills (or at least poker prowess) be a prerequisite for American presidents? Somewhere, Ronald Reagan is probably smiling.

CHAPTER ONE

Billy Beer vs. Bedtime for Bonzo: The Election of 1980

From the late 1950’s through the end of the 1980’s, Walter Cronkite was regarded by many as the most beloved and respected newsman in America. Cronkite, the long-time anchorman of the popular CBS Evening News, had personally known each American president since Herbert Hoover – Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. Following the Election of 1976, Cronkite privately concluded that Jimmy Carter was the smartest of all the presidents he had ever met.¹ Publically, however, Cronkite remained impartial. And eventually, his evening newscasts (regularly viewed by millions of Americans) began to reflect – and influence – the public’s growing discontent with the Carter Administration. President Carter and his crew seemed either unwilling or incapable (or both) of halting rising taxes and curbing escalating inflation. For example, rates for new mortgages had soared from a previous high of 11% to 18% or more. And prices of consumer goods – from lamb chops to theatre tickets – had nearly doubled in a few short years under Carter. Was there any end in sight?

Walter Cronkite had long been famous for ending his evening newscasts with this standard statement: And that’s the way it was, followed by the day’s date. Well, by January 1, 1980, many Americans believed that, as far as the Carter Administration was concerned, things could not get much worse. And, to add fuel to the growing fires of discontent, Cronkite began to announce at the conclusion of each newscast the exact number of days American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran still had not been rescued from captivity in Iran. The Iran Hostage Crisis, which suddenly began on November 4, 1979, dragged on (100 days), and on (275 days), and on (380 days) …² And Cronkite’s nightly tally of days in captivity became a not-so-subtle reminder that the United States of America – that once-powerful nation that had won two world wars – was growing increasingly feckless under the administration of the former peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter. In the eyes of many Americans by 1980, Jimmy Carter was the worst president since Herbert Hoover. While there is no evidence to confirm his brother Billy Carter’s charge during the 1976 presidential campaign that Jimmy Carter was nuts because he wished to become president, many Americans soon concluded that they had been nuts to vote for Billy’s older brother.³

Ronald Reagan was nearly fourteen years older than Jimmy Carter when the two major candidates for President of the United States squared off against one another in the Election of 1980. In 1940, when Jimmy Carter was a senior at Plains High School, Ronald Reagan could be seen in movie theatres throughout Georgia and the rest of the country playing the dying Notre Dame halfback George Gipp in the Warner Bros.’ football classic, Knute Rockne – All American. Reagan’s most memorable line from the film, uttered by him as he pretended to lay dying, … win just one for the Gipper, became famous throughout the land. Little did Jimmy Carter know, watching Ronald Reagan on the big screen in a darkened theatre, that the Gipper would one day run against him for President – and win.

In hindsight, especially when considering the favorable job-performance ratings given to President Ronald Reagan by an overwhelming majority of Americans just four years later when he defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale in the Election of 1984 by sweeping forty-nine of the fifty states (Mondale carried only his native Minnesota), it seems reasonable to assume that Reagan was a shoe-in to defeat the not-so-popular President Carter in the Election of 1980. Not necessarily so. First of all, Reagan had to fight for the GOP’s nomination. The scent of a probable victory for whomever the Republican Presidential nominee in 1980 would be caused a flood of GOP Presidential aspirants to appear by 1979 and challenge one another for the prize. Republicans recognized clearly as the Iran Hostage Crisis dragged on that Carter’s chances of being reelected in November 1980 were diminishing. They also concluded that Carter’s leading opponent for the Democratic nomination in the spring of 1980, the Senate’s Liberal Lion from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, was philosophically to the left of the majority of Americans, and that he still wore the albatross of that tragic young lady’s drowning at Chappaquiddick around his neck. Either Democrat could well lose in November, but to whom? By mid-1979, Ronald Reagan was not the only Republican who had thrown his hat in the ring, as Teddy Roosevelt once loved to say. A long line of prominent Republicans were eager to take a shot at the coveted nomination. They included, in alphabetical order, the ten-term conservative Congressman from Illinois John Anderson, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, the former Congressman, Director of the CIA, Ambassador to the UN, and wealthy Texas oil man George H.W. Bush, the former Secretary of the Treasury John B. Connally of Texas, and Gerald Ford’s former Vice Presidential running mate in 1976, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas. Each was ready, willing, and able to do battle with either Jimmy Carter or Ted Kennedy if the opportunity should arise in the form of the Presidential nomination of the GOP. When there is blood in the water, like sharks, the candidates will come. In late 1979, Ronald Reagan was but one of the sharks.

As the former two-term Republican Governor (1967-75) of California, Ronald Reagan wore a political albatross of sorts around his own neck – his co-starring role with a trained chimpanzee in the 1951 Hollywood low-budget film called Bedtime for Bonzo. During his first race for Governor of California in 1966, the question was often asked by both opposing Republicans and Democrats, "Can the star of Bedtime for Bonzo be taken seriously?" At least it can be said that, unlike Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, Ronald Reagan was never accused of having sex with Bonzo, or of having caused his death. Nevertheless, snide references to his sometimes less than stellar Hollywood career, and especially his Bedtime for Bonzo flick, would haunt Ronald Reagan and call into question his ability to govern. After all, many would say, "deep-down, he’s just an actor . …"

Actor or not, Ronald Reagan learned from his mistakes at the 1976 Republican National Convention, where he had come within a mere 171 votes from edging out President Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination. He applied his lessons well. By February 1980, the Republican race for the nomination had narrowed to three: Anderson, Bush, and Reagan. That January, George Bush won a much-publicized victory by winning the Iowa Caucuses. But Reagan had not bothered to campaign in Iowa. Instead, his calculated focus was on the New Hampshire Primary in February, where he was already vigorously campaigning. Reagan won in New Hampshire by a whopping margin. His calculated risk had paid off. For after his one-sided victory in New Hampshire, Reagan won most of the following state primaries and nominating conventions; by July, Ronald Reagan was finally a shoe-in for the Republican nomination on the first ballot. As an actor, he had been known in the industry for always being prepared – on time, on his mark, lines memorized. His acting skills helped him thrive on the public stage of politics. Recognizing his defeat, George Bush graciously stepped aside. But a defiant John Anderson decided to test his own star appeal by breaking from the party and running as an Independent on the National Unity ticket (that November, he failed to win a single electoral vote).

That summer, the Republicans met in Detroit, Michigan, on July 14th. The delegates were confident of victory in November, and enthusiastically selected Reagan on the first ballot. Their one dilemma? Who would be Vice President? Many favored former President Gerald Ford as the GOP’s Vice Presidential candidate. But Ronald Reagan had other plans. Even though George Bush had needled Reagan during the Presidential primary campaigns by describing his plans to cut taxes while increasing defense spending as voodoo economics, Reagan surprised the delegates (and caused many conservatives to frown in disapproval) by announcing that his choice for the number two position on the GOP ticket was George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas. And so, for the Republicans in 1980, it was Reagan-Bush.

A depressed bunch of Democrats met that August in New York City. Many Eastern Establishment Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, were unhappy with the presidency of Jimmy Carter and his Georgia Mafia. Billy Beer was never served at Harvard or Yale, or at New York City’s posh Tavern on the Green. Kennedy supporters hoped to stage a revolt against Carter on the convention floor, but their hopes had been dampened after Teddy self-destructed in a nationally televised interview with CBS reporter Roger Mudd in late 1979 with his rambling answers to obvious questions about the Chappaquiddick Scandal, and even worse, his inability to convincingly answer the simple question, "Senator Kennedy, why do you want to be President? But Kennedy, to his credit, refused to give up without a fight for the nomination, and, when the delegates assembled in New York City, the Senator implored the delegates to give the Democrats a fighting chance in November by calling for an open convention, meaning that the delegates would be freed from any obligation to vote for their state’s primary or convention winner. His motion was defeated, and he none too happily withdrew from the race. In the minds of many savvy delegates, Ted Kennedy’s defeat at the convention killed any chance the Democrats may have had of winning in November. Carter was nominated to seek another term as America’s President, and Vice President Walter Mondale, the lone Washington insider" who had done a credible job as the Carter Administration’s number two man in the previous four years, was renominated. And so, for the Democrats in 1980, it was Carter-Mondale, a repeat of 1976.

The Democrat’s duo remained the same, but 1980 was no repeat of 1976. Reagan-Bush defeated Carter-Mondale in an electoral landslide, 489 to 49. Was it because Reagan was so popular, or because Carter was so disliked? No surgical lobotomies were performed on a representative sample of average voters in 1980 in order to answer that question, but, in all likelihood, the Reagan landslide was more the result of votes cast against Billy Beer and all the other Carter baggage than it was votes in favor of Bedtime for Bonzo. Why? To most Americans living outside of California, Ronald Reagan was still largely an unknown as far as governance was concerned. He was no doubt an excellent public speaker and a candidate who, when occasionally thrown off course with a question from out of left field, could remedy the situation with a smile, an off-the-cuff joke, or an appropriate ad lib, and calmly continue on his way unfazed. The fact that Jimmy Carter had royally screwed up on many domestic problems (inflation and unemployment) and foreign policy (the Panama Canal Treaty and the Iran Hostage Crisis) were givens. Hence, most voters decided that, since things can’t get much worse, Let’s give the new guy a chance.

In fairness to Ronald Reagan, he was also elected because of his astounding ability as the Great Communicator to blend common sense and dignity with good humor and a quick wit. If nothing else, Ronald Reagan was likeable, and what he proposed made sense to most Americans. Reagan had a knack for turning a slip of the tongue to his ultimate advantage. During the campaign, when criticized for saying America was in a depression instead of a recession, Reagan, in his typical fashion, cleverly responded with a friendly smile on his face, "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his!"⁴

At their lone presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 28th, Ronald Reagan appeared calm, friendly, reasonable, and self-confident in contrast to a sometimes shrill, preachy, and even mean Jimmy Carter. In one of the classic summations of all time, Ronald Reagan ended his part of the debate by suggesting to the millions of Americans watching on TV that, in choosing which of the two candidates they would vote for, he had some simple questions for them to use as guides while making their decisions: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it once was? If you answer yes, you know whom to vote for. If you answer no, I suggest you choose me. If one thing is certain about the Election of 1980, it is the fact that there was a clear choice between Carter and Reagan. And the voters chose Reagan. Bedtime for Bonzo bested Billy Beer.

CHAPTER TWO

There’s No Business Like Show Business!

It is highly unlikely that Ronald Reagan would have co-starred with Peggy the Chimp in the 1950’s Bedtime for Bonzo had he not eagerly jumped in his Nash convertible in Des Moines, Iowa, some thirteen years earlier, and headed west on assignment to Southern California. In the spring of 1937, Dutch Reagan was an up-and-coming sports announcer for radio station WHO in Des Moines. His assignment was to go west to cover the spring training camp of the Chicago Cubs on Catalina Island; his secret ambition was to become a Hollywood motion picture star. As luck would have it, on the morning Reagan arrived in Los Angeles, it was raining. Both air and sea transportation between Los Angeles harbor and Catalina Island had been cancelled due to the rain and high seas. So the twenty-six-year-old Dutch decided to take advantage of the rain delay by visiting some old mid-western friends who were working in the motion picture business in Hollywood. His first stop? Republic Pictures. Gene Autry, Republic’s Singing Cowboy, was filming an outdoor scene on a giant indoor sound stage. Reagan’s friends were singing background for Mr. Autry. Dutch was delighted, and felt right at home. That evening, Dutch dined with a Des Moines girlfriend (who was already in show business in Hollywood) at the posh Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Her name? Joy Hodges. Joy arranged for Dutch to meet with her agent the very next morning. The agent arranged for a screen test for his newest client at Warner Bros. Studios. Soon, Jack Warner, the powerful head of Warner Bros., viewed Dutch Reagan’s screen test and liked what he saw. He offered Reagan a seven-year contract at two hundred dollars a week (a small fortune in 1937). Reagan eagerly signed, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In addition to not wearing his eye glasses in public (Reagan was quite nearsighted) and changing his center-part hair-do to a pompadour, the brass at Warner Bros. required that Reagan drop the name Dutch. Forevermore, Dutch would go by his real birth name, Ronald Reagan.

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, using one’s real name on motion picture marquees was relatively rare. Studio brass often manufactured new stage names for their actors under contract so they would become more marketable for public consumption. For example, for four decades, one of Hollywood’s most handsome, sophisticated, and witty male sex symbols was Cary Grant.