Cspan kiron skinner, coeditor of reagan in his own hand, what do people get if they buy this book . Guest they see unvarnished Ronald Reagan, long before the presidency, writing, reading, thinking about every major issue facing the united states, and also drafting a strategy, quite surprisingly for many, to end the cold war peacefully without a major hegemonic war. Cspan can you remember the first time you ever heard of all this . Guest what do you mean, the Radio Broadcasts, his writing . Cspan the Radio Broadcasts, where youyou got yourself involved in it. Guest i was working in the Reagan Library. Id written nancy reagan, i believe it was in 1996; i wrote her aa letter about my research on the end of the cold war, and i said, im deeply fascinated by the american side of the story. Most of the research in the 1990s that i saw in the scholarly literature focused on the soviet side and on Eastern Europe and, you know, for good reasons. The revolutions were fascinating to people, and all of a sudden documents were opening up that scholars had never seen before. But i was interested on the american contribution. So i wrote her. Cspan what were you doing at the time . What werewhat were you. Guest i was a postdoc at ucla and i was a fellow at the Hoover Institution. And so i wrote her and said, im interested in the american side of the story. I dont think theres enough reporting on it, and id like to look at the president s private papers. i didnt know what would be there, but i thought there might be something to help me to unravel the american contribution. And so she granted me access to the papers and hundreds of archival boxes. Into the project i came upupon a few boxes, actually storage boxes, filled with hundreds, reallyliterally thousands of pieces of paper of reagans handwriting. And it took a while to figure out what it meant. Some of it was disorganized. Some of it was organized in file folders, but not all of it. And it was fascinating. It was. Cspan whwhere are you from originally . Wheres home . Guest i was born in chicago, but i grew up in the bay area, so i have to claim the bay area i moved there at age three, so i grew up near stanford. First San Francisco and then in a little town called redwood city, a few miles from stanfordi would claim that as my childhood home. Cspan and where did you get your undergraduate degree . Guest Spelman College in atlanta and. Cspan in what subject . Guest in Political Science. And my masters and phd from harvard. Cspan and where are you getting your interest in Political Science along the way . Where did it come from . Guest probably having parents that were civil rights activists in the 60s in the bay area. That was probably my initial interest. I saw their activism, and that was important. But also, i think i became interested in International Affairs at spelman, in particular for sfrom some courses that i took, and then harvard was a wonderful place to Study International relations. The end of the cold war story became important to me later on in my graduate career when i took a job, to the dismay of my dissertation adviser, to do the research for George Shultzs memoir andout at stanford. Cspan whywhy to the dismay . Guest oh, because it was such a huge project for somesomeone who was working on her own dissertation, to take on another project, andbut i thought it was a great opportunity. Cspan how did that happen . Guest in 1989, i moved out to california to work with condi rice, who was my outside reader on my thesis committee, partly, and also to be in the bay area, and she got a job in the bush at the first bush administration, and so i just happened to meet shultz one day and asked him if i could interview him for my research. And hed just left the reagan administration, and he was allowing students to interview him. And so he allowed me to interview him, and it led to me working for him to do the research for his memoir. Cspan now how did condi rice become yourwhat . Outside of what s. Guest my reader. Cspan harvard . Guest yeah, thean outside reader on the dissertation, but from another university. Cspan but from ucla. Guest no, at harvard. Cspan at harvard. Ok. Guest yeah. Shewe met just, i think, through the field. I met her at stanford and she would come to harvard and give talks, and so i thought she would be a good person toto work with. Cspan now are you political along the way . Do you have strong feelings about anything . Guest no, but the press has made a big deal of the fact that im a registered democrat and iyou know, ive done this book on reagan. But ive not really been actively involved in politics. When i was younger i had internships, one in washington for pete mccloskey, who was a republican, but the main reason i worked for him is that he was very supportive of a school i went to in east palo alto, an elementary and high school, and hehe offered me the job. So thats thethe reason. But ive never really been involved in politics at any serious level. Cspan now what was the George Shultz experience like . Guest oh, it was wonderful. And i think it really, in some ways, led to this book, because i became interested in the american side of the story, and the soviet side, but particularly the american side, because i got to see the end of the cold war from the Vantage Point of central decision makers, which scholars rarely do. I got to work with him very closely, got to read his files and interact with him as he drafted chapters. And so it was a wonderful experience to have. And it led me to have a great interest inin Ronald Reagan. Cspan i think what we ought to do, before we talk a lot more about it, is to play one of the many pieces that are in here. Before we doand itand youits on a cd that wyou brought with you. Guest right. Cspan basically, whats thethe meat of this book . What are people reading . Guest thethethe heart of the book includes Radio Broadcasts that reagan gave between 1975 and the end of 1979. After he stepped down as governorand youll remember this, i thinkat the end of 74, he went into private life, but not really. He wasnt in elective position but he worked very hard in the public space. He decided to give a radio broadcast to support himself. It was daily, five days a week, about three minutes a day. He gave over 1,000 in the late 1970s. He would stop them to campaign for the presidency in late 75 and 76. When he was defeated by gerald ford at the Republican Convention in 76 he turned back to the Radio Broadcasts and continued them until the fall of 79. He also had a newspaper column, which you may remember; first Copley News Services and later King Features syndicated those columns, and they were biweekly by the late 70s. The Radio Broadcasts were many of them were written by reagan. We found over 670 in his own handwriting in the archives. He couldhe probably wrote more. Thats what we found in the archives thatthey were saved. Cspan so when you opened that box up, those first boxes, thats what you were looking at. Guest thats whatthats what i saw. But then there were other things as well. Theres a section in the book titled other writings. It includes childhood writings, but interestingly, speeches, which constitconstitute strong policy documents on the economy, on Foreign Policy, during the presidency, before the presidency and during the 1980 president ial campaign. Some of thats in the book as well. Cspan by the way, i have one question. It doesyou didnt cover it in any of the intros or anything. Where are the tapes of the radio addresses . Guest thats a great question, and we have the tape here today. Theyre at the Hoover Institution archives. And this project could not have happened without both archives. The Radio Broadcasts, the handwritten versions, and all of the private papers are at the Reagan Library, although they are not controlled by the library. Theres not a deed of gift. They are controlled by the reagans. Theyre private papers that happen to be housed there. So thats one place where reagan material is. The second place is the Hoover Institution, which controls the tapes. It was able to get hold of the tapes. Harry oconnor was the producer of reagans Radio Broadcasts. In fact, he was in hollywood at the time, in the 70s, and suggested the Radio Broadcasts to reagan as his governorship was coming to an end. He gave those to the Hoover Institution, and the Hoover Institution, as a result partly, i think, of this book, has had the old crumbling tapes and Vinyl Records from the 70s converted to cd so that they will be preserved. Cspan so theyre all on cds now . Guest theyretheyre all on cds. Cspan how many of them are there . Guest oh, gosh, there are, you know, over a thousand. So theyre every. Cspan over a thousand Radio Broadcasts. Guest broadcasts, and theyve all been saved. And so thats ajust a great project. And i think itour book reallyitit works well with the Radio Broadcasts to see what he wrote. You see the original draft. The radiothe actual broadcasts are slightly different, if you read along, because that was a final version, and he might change a word or two. Cspan itit strikes me that if you hadnt asked for this, they would havewe wouldnt know this. Guest a lot of luck, serendipity, has gone into this project at every turn, and i can tell you, you know, some of these storiesmeeting the andersons, and they became crucial to theto the project, and. Cspan who are the andersons . Guest Martin Anderson and annelise anderson. They are economists at the Hoover Institution who worked with reagan in the 76 and 80 campaigns, very closely with him. Martin traveled with reagan on the plane, was a close adviser. And i saw his name quite often in the archives, and annelises as well. Theyre fellows at the Hoover Institution, and so since i was there, i could go to them and show them documents, and they helped me understand what i was seeing. And so that collaboration became central, because reaganas you notice, looking at the book, he covered everyalmost every issue facing the us, domestic and foreign abortion, africa, arms control, weapons systems, taxation, regulatory policy. He was doing this all by himself. But we as scholars, most of us focus narrowly on a single area that we specialize in. And so the andersons and i really needed each other for this story. They could do the domestic and economic, and i could focus more on the foreignpolicy side, and then we did joint parts together. So theres a lot of luck that happened at every turn with this book. Andand they also had the confidence of mrs. Reagan. Cspan but is it a surprise to you that if you hadnt asked mrs. Reagan to stoto get into this, that that box would have nevermaybe never been looked at for a long time . Guest thats the beginning of the story, if i had not asked for it, andbut thei think there are other things as well. Most scholars who look at big outcomes in world history, especially in tin the us context, tend to look at the diplomatic record, at the official diplomatic record, at government documents. Whats interesting about this book is that theres not one government document in the book these are all private writings, before the presidency or during the presidency, writings that did not make it to the official government channel as a government document. Cspan lets listen to this first one that you brought along with you. Guest ok. Cspan which one is it . Guest its called looking out a window, and it was broadcast in that least taped in january 1978. Its an important one. Its not a policy wonk document, as many of theof them are, but its important because it gives reagans philosophy about the American People, hishis great confidence in their judgment and who they are, and also the fact that he does not see himself as distant from the people. He sees himself as one of them and he identifies with their daily lives. Cspan as we do that i want to show the cover of this. Where is this picture, by the way, on the cover . Do you know where it was taken . Guest it was in an office somewhere or a study of his. It was ait was a study. And i think that is onei think its before thethe presidency. Cspan lets listen to it. This is how long, by the way . Guest theyre no more than three minutes. Cspan ok. excerpt from radio broadcast mr. Ronald reagan its nightfall in a strange town a long way from home. Im watching the lights come on from my hotel room window on the 35th floor. Ill be right back. Im afraid youre in for a little bit of philosophizing, if you dont mind. Some of these broadcasts i must draft while im out on the road traveling on what i call the mashedpotato circuit. A little while after i write them, for example, ill be speaking to a group of good people in a banquet hall. Right now, however, im looking down on a busy city at rush hour. The streets below are twin ribbons of sparkling red and white. Taillights on the cars moving away from my Vantage Point provide the red, and the headlights of those coming toward me the white. Its logical to assume all or most are homeward bound at the end of a days work. I wonder why some social engineer hasnt tried to get them to trade homes. The traffic is equally heavy in both directions, so if they all lived in the end of town where they worked theyd save a lot of travel time. But better forget i said that, and dont even think it, or some bureaucrat will try to do it. I wonder, though, about the people in those cars, who they are, what they do, what theyre thinking about as they head for the warmth of home and family. Come to think of it, ive met themoh, maybe not those particular individuals, but still, i feel i know them. Some social planners refer to them as the masses, which only proves they dont know them. Ive been privileged to meet people all over this land in the special kind of way you meet them when youre campaigning. They are not the masses or, as the elitists would have it, the common man. theyre very uncommon; individuals, each with his or her own hopes and dreams, plans and problems, and the kind of quiet courage that makes this whole country run better than just about any other place on earth. By now, thinking of their homecoming, im counting how many more hotel room windows ill be looking out of before im in the rushhour traffic heading home. And yes, im feeling a little envious of the people in those cars down below. It seems ive said a thousand goodbyes, each one harder than the one before. Someone very wise once wrote that if we were all told one day that the end was coming, that we were living our last day, every road, every street and all the telephone lines would be jammed with people trying to reach someone to whom we wanted simply to say, i love you. but why wait for such a final day and take the chance of not getting there in time . Speaking of time, ill have to stop now. Hello, operator. Id like to make a longdistance call. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. end of excerpt cspan what was your reaction the first time you heard that . Guest oh, it was emotional. Ive heard it maa few times now. Weve played it to audiences as weve discussed our book in the last couple of months, and its aits an emotional one, because you also see reareagan as ahis kind of emotional side. And its authentic reagan. Its just who he is and how he thought, and it just, i think, gives a lot of credibility to thethe book, because you see him writing as hes talking. You see him thinking, looking out of a window, thinking about, you know, the fact that he has to write these things. Hes really writing this as hes watching the cars, so i think its wonderful. Cspan now diddid you go into this project with a certain idea of who Ronald Reagan was . And have you changed your mind . Guest i didnt, and so i didnt go in with a certain view. I think had ihad i had a sfixed view of reagan, i dont know that i would have even asked for the papers. I was much more interested in the american side of the end of the cold war, and i knew from what id done in shultzs work that reagan was an important figure and that he wasnt just a puppet. But i wasnt really trying to prove that. I really wanted to understand what i saw as the strategy, on the one hand, of trying to evince an interest in mutual cooperation with the soviets, alwhile at the same time deploying military strength to make that happen. And that was the kind of puzzle that i was interested in. I learned a lot more about reagan in doing this book, but i never intended to be a reagan scholar, and i guess im well on my way to becoming one now. Cspan this book went to the bestseller list. Guest New York Times and to about five other bestseller lists as well wall street journal, washington post, Publishers Weekly. Itits still, i think, on Publishers Weekly now, and amazon. Cspan are you surprised . Guest yes, i am. And i didnt have the easiest time, the andersons and i, getting a contract for the book with a big publisher. I dont think most of them thought there was anything there to publish, just some old Radio Broadcasts by reagan. And so it took a while, and so this is a surprise. Cspan how did you do it . Guest hard work. Cspan well, first of all, its published by free press. Guest by the free press. Simon schuster is the parent company. A lot of hard work selling the book, selling the idea, believing