How would you describe the perfect conservative . Im not sure there is any thing there is such a thing as a perfect conservative. I am everybody, i think it is like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. It is hard to see the whole picture, but someone with a generosity of spirit, what can they learn from the other camps rather than having theological disputes about different points. You have written as much on Ronald Reagan as anybody. Of those different kind of conservatives, what kind of conservative is Ronald Reagan . Steven he was in idiosyncratic conservative. He was not that conservative, and a couple of ways. He was fond of quoting tom payne. He loved to quote him saying, we have enough power to make the world over again. I remember four years ago, anytime, anywhere, that is nonsense. People say that is part of reagans optimism. There is a truth to that, but on his headstone, i think the word is, i know in my heart that man is good. That certainly leaves out the Christian Doctrine of sin, which others keep in the forefront of their mind. He had libertarian sympathies and traditional sympathies, but he was his own special thing. John when did Ronald Reagan become a conservative . Steven that is an interesting question. Probably in the 40s when he adopted antiliberal it was in the 1950s, especially when he was hosting General Electric theater. He was reading a lot of early conservative literature. They were big, conservative books in the 1950s. He talked himself into becoming a conservative. He did not become a republican until 1962. John talk about that change in becoming a republican. Steven im not quite sure he said one time, i woke up and realized i had been supporting all the people whose ideas i am criticizing now. He had been part of occurrence for nixon, so he had already moved to supporting republicans at an early time. He was slow in changing his party registration. John a quote that you use in your book, Ronald Reagan was humanly accessible to people but impenetrable to those who try to know him well. Why . Steven his theory has to do partly with reagans upbringing as the son of an alcoholic. There is good psychological evidence that people who have alcoholic or abusive parents tend to be more remote. Also, reagan moved around a lot as a kid. His father struggled to keep a job, so he was always the new kid in school, which made him shy. I think it is not unique to him. A lot of people said similar things about franklin roosevelt. His own kids did not get on with him very well. But roosevelt had this great connection with the people. He understood people intuitively and could connect with them. It is not an unusual trait for politicians to be a little bit remote sometimes. Part of the acting career reagan was he did not care about the reviews of his movies. He was always denigrated as a b actor. But he understood box office and i think he always understood that there are two audiences and do not Pay Attention to the critics. Pay attention to the people. There were certain issues that were showing up in the polls, so when he first ran for governor, he said, i think people are mad about the chaos on the campuses. Nobody is telling us that in our polls. In 1976, he opposed the panama canal treaty. Posters were not really asking about it, but when he gave the line about the panama canal, the audience just erected. He nearly sank the treaty. John pulls today versus reagans time did Ronald Reagan care . Steven he did. One problem is we do a poll every 15 minutes and i think there is an overload. If i can make one change no, he did Pay Attention to the polls. He was known as the great communicator. He gave some effective speeches, but there are some about especially nicaragua. He gave a couple of speeches and 84 and a opinion did not move at all. He did Pay Attention to the polls, he just did not talk about it publicly. John Ronald Reagan is the subject of two books. A 1600 page set of books on the history of Ronald Reagan, the age of reagan, the conservative counterrevolution, the former greatness the age of reagan, the fall of the liberal order. These are just some of the books by Steven Hayward and we are talking about them on indepth, if you want to join the conversation. You can also send us a text. If you do, please include your name and where you are from. On twitter, it is at the tv. Steven hayward will be with us throughout this conversation of indepth. I want to talk about Ronald Reagan and his relationship with or which off. Gorbachev died just last week. What was the relationship like, when they were both in office and later . Steven that is an extraordinary story. Initially, they were inclined not to like each other. Reagan wrote in his diary, people tell me he is a different kind of leader. But he hoped to sit down with a soviet leader and see if they could make a breakthrough. Gorbachev turned out to be that person, but not initially. Gorbachev thought that reagan was a dinosaur. I think youre rich off was 55 or 56. There was about 20 years difference. He did not mean it because he thought he was old. Very orthodox marxism. But they came to like each other. They came to like each other because they argued directly, for the first time, in a way that no american president or soviet leader had before. They argued about ideological differences between the countries. Some of the transcripts are fascinating. We did not learn about these until the 1990s, but they were very frank, serious, earnest and a bit jocular. The most interesting one was the reykjavik summit. The one that was so dramatic because it looked like they were on the cusp of a deal. Unthinkable in the decades before that. It all fell apart at the end because reagan would not concede the demand to get rid of the defense initiative. That was always the drama of a. I got my hands on the soviet transcript of their facetoface meetings, which was more complete. At times, they would have really tough arguments on ideology. Reagan was arguing, we have a oneparty system or twoparty system. And gorbachev says, i respect your system and we have to coexist. But reagan says, i would like to persuade you to become a member of the Republican Party. Gorbachev was a little nonplussed. He said an interesting idea. Can we get back to nuclear arms now . John did the public know that they were having these exchanges . Steven no. They were both smiling and one talk. Reagan was very tough, but also friendly. Reagan came back from geneva saying, i think he is a different kind of leader. I think Margaret Thatcher is right. We can do business with this guy. They still had sharp disagreements. One of the things gorbachev rings up himself at reykjavik was, all i can tell is that you still believe in that talk of evil empire and your speech about how the soviet union will end up on the ash heap of history. What am i to believe about that . So reagan had to reassure him that, this is what i think. The argument goes on. John how did he go about reassuring him . How do you walk back of the date men . Steven it connected back to the main subject. We are the only two people who can prevent the destruction of the world, of each others countries. Once it became clear that they were sincere about wanting to do that, it broke down technical details. But everyone thought, we have never had fundamental conversations about this, between the countries and how we actually unravel this unrest. John reagan wanted to tell gorbachev that if the earth was invaded by aliens, they would have to Work Together to fight the aliens. Steven reagan said that in their first meeting together. Colin powell was working on the Security Council and said, this just sounds so crazy. Reagan told that story a few weeks later. Luke had a great quote about that. He said, im sure gorbachev was nonplussed about fending off martian invaders. It used to be that in summit that you would sit down they were very slow affairs. And then the russians, including the premier would have this big notebook and it would have a prepared response. Probably no page on l. A. And invasion. That was the first summit where they had simultaneous translation. They were not referring to briefing books. That is what made it different from Everything Else that had gone before. Steven host gorbachev john will rich off as men of the decade. What did you think of that . Steven he deserves a lot of credit. He did want to end the arms race and he did repudiate the doctrine that said, once there is socialism, we defend it by force. He announced in 88, unilateral reduction. He gave us that without any concessions from our side, which was remarkable. The part of what is going on, imagine if you had done to graduate school and at the end of 1990 one, the soviet union did not exist anymore. The nobel that gorbachev guy i always thought that part of that was the academic establishment could not stand that reagan had been so effective and had been vindicated in many ways against all criticisms. Suddenly, you have real deals. I think he kind of embarrassed them. I think that was one way of getting back at reagan was ignoring him and giving gorbachev all the credit. John did they have a relationship later in life . Steven i do not know how much they kept in contact. But he did visit reagan at his ranch in santa barbara. There are pictures of them getting together. Gorbachev said to somebody later that he was unimpressed with reagans ranch. Gorbachev thought, the president of the u. S. Should have a big mansion and not this little ranch house. Just cultural differences, i suppose. John what was your journey . Steven you know, i grew up in the conservative town outside of l. A. With conservative parents. True story. My mother and my dad were into goldwater. They thought he was going to win by a landslide. I remember as a first grader, that not only did goldwater lose, but he lost by a lot. The rest of the world must be different than my neighborhood was my thought. From there, i joke that i am conservative by self structure, but i started Reading National review in the eighth grade. I said, i do not understand a word this guy is saying, but he seems fun and interesting. John when did you start understanding what he was saying . John pretty early on because as a sophomore, i remember meeting him a lot. In high school, those days he still had to do vocabulary, quizzes and all that. I was always sending in crazy words from national review. My teacher would say, where are you getting these . And i said, im getting them from buckley. I was precocious that way, i guess. John where did you go to college . Steven i went to college in oregon. I was a student journalist. I became the editor of the paper and started learning how to write up beds. Right after college, i went to work in washington as an intern. Who formative experience. While i lived in washington, i noticed that capitol hill is run by people in their 20s. All smart, eager, ambitious, and i got to thinking, i do not think i want to be part of that scene. If i come back to washington, i need to know more to be a serious journalist or writer, so that is when i decided to go to rajoy school. I graduated 40 years ago this week, in fact. I thought about chicago and a couple other places, but i went there because it was close to home. It had a number of conservative professors there. I decided i would learn from the best. John why was your first book on Winston Churchill . Steven that is a funny story. I got stuck in one of those leadership seminars one day. The person doing the workshop kept mentioning churchill. He said at the end, you know a lot about church hill. You should write a book about his leadership style. So in graduate school, one of the principal thoughts is that the best way to learn about politics is biography. Especially biographies o lincoln, both roosevelts, de gaulle, but in particular, church hill promotion i found interesting because my parents were world war ii generation. And that is why i ended up writing about church hill. I knew a lot about him already. What i learned about, better ways of approaching political life. John fast forward 25 years. He came out with conservative wit, apostle of freedom. He wrote that this could have easily been called, why stand matters stan evans matters. Steven there are always short biographies about why soandso matters. I thought he deserved a biography because he is already being forgotten. He is really unknown by the younger generation. If you are of the reagan and buckley era, stan was a hugely important year as a journalist, as a thinker and as an activist. Combining all those roles that are usually kept the separate. His last one was a serious attempt at a vindication of mccarthy. He was everybodys favorite guy because he was friendly with everybody. He was funny in person. Seldom in his writing, but everybody has their favorite evans jokes. Other people that viewers would be familiar with include ann coulter. Tapscott at the examiner. He influenced a whole generation of conservative journalists. John this is stan evans from the archives in 1994. I am a conservative. I have been on here a number of times. I mean by that, the things that i was just talking about. I am interested in conserving certain things, not because of the status quo. Oftentimes conserving the tradition of freedom of a limited government, which is the tradition of the u. S. And western culture in general. Because i believe in those values, i am a conservative. John Stanton Evans back from 1994. He is known for the sharon statement. Steven it was the founding document for Young Americans for freedom. It was fall of 1961. Coming out of the goldwater boom , a lot of people said, lets capitalize on their enthusiasm. They came up with americans for freedom. Stanton was about 28 years old at that point and was asked to write the statement. It contrasts with the later statement of the new left, which was 5000 words long and it is a basic statement of intervals. Resisting communism, of course is the one part that is kind of archaic, but the rest can be repeated today, pretty much verbatim. Stan never bragged about the primary drafter. He would say, i did not come up with anything original. I was trying to express wisdom. John we, as Young Conservatives believe that that liberty is indivisible that Political Freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom, that the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms to the preservation of order, the provision of National Defense and the administration of justice. It goes on from there. Is the sharon statement still relative today in conservative circles . John there are steven there are Different Directions you could go with that. There is orthodox marxism. Did descending from that, 1950s, one of the big intellectual current was behavioralism. In 20 floyd is a it said that individual consciousness is determined by subnational forces. It is pushing against that idea that human beings are free, that we have genuine, metaphysical freedom. You could interpret it as the view that the government should plan or supervise more aspects of your life, for your own good. That is less ideological ideological. John a half hour into our two hour indepth interview with Stephen AyersSteven Hayward. I want. Good morning. Glenn, are you with us. Caller sorry. Thank you very much for taking my call. Mr. Hayward, i would like to ask you about what you think about the current state of how American History is being taught and Higher Education now, especially stuff like the cookbook plan and the founding fathers, who basically were on the same team, stuff like that that has kind of taken off during the george floyd psychosis that happened in 2020. Specifically, would you comment on an article that you commented on, on your website, power lines. It was an american greatness article called america never existed. Steven right. Do we have a whole extra hour . Goodness. I could go on for literally days , but i will not. The short version is that the teaching of history has been decaying for a long time and now it is deplorable. A peoples history of the u. S. Never mind some factual errors, but the framework is they represent the whole of america, the defects. I think that is wrong. From then, you can go on a long time. Glenn elmers wrote that article about america never existed, a provocative title trying to get peoples attention. What he was trying to suggest was let me put it this way. I have been asking questions this week from seven several people. If all leading patrol institutions shift that america is run, our history is terrible and our constitution stinks, cannot country long survive in its present form . There is a lot of talk about another civil war. We do not have geographic divisions, so probably not. But when they teach you that the country is so defective as to not deserve any respect at all, that will be a problem for the longevity of the country. If those views become widely accepted by american citizens, the country may not fall apart as an actual entity and being. The u. S. Might go on for a couple hundred more years, but it will not be the same country that we used to cherish and celebrate for its breakthroughs. We hold these truths to be selfevident. A power a blog that i write it does pretty big traffic. It became publicly visible almost 20 years ago, when one of my cowriters on the site, scott johnson, about 11 15 at night. They look fake to me. He was the first person to start the avalanche rolling, unraveling that story. Traffic went through the roof and we have had big traffic since then. They asked me to join several years later and i write for it almost every day. John you have been a visiting fellow, scholar or lecturer at plenty of universities. Uc berkeley like why continue to do that if you have such concern about Higher Education . Steven it is a mistake, if conservatives do not compete to be in these institutions. I am currently, as i put it, an inmate at uc berkeley. Berkeley gets a bad reputation. It is such a big