The real Reagan: the Gipper's actual record diverges significantly from the posthumous conservative mythology about him.

• Author: Heilbrunn, Jacob
• Position: Ronald Reagan - Book review

Ronald Reagan

By Jacob Weisberg

Times Books, 208 pp.

The former Republican governor made it clear that he was intent on campaigning for the party's presidential nomination as an outsider who would take on the vested interests in the very heart of national government. "In my opinion, the root of these problems lies right here--in Washington, D.C," he announced at the National Press Club in the fall of 1975. "Our nation's capital has become the seat of a 'buddy' system that functions for its own benefit--increasingly insensitive to the needs of the American worker who supports it with his taxes." He ended by reminding the audience that he was "not a member of the Washington establishment" but, instead, "a citizen representing my fellow citizens against the institution of government."

Sound familiar? This was Ronald Reagan challenging President Gerald Ford for the nomination. Reagan inflicted real wounds on Ford during the primary but was unable to dislodge him at the Republican convention in Kansas City. But the anti-establishment credo that Reagan enunciated during the campaign provides a reminder that the 2016 election is being waged in his shadow, at least when it comes to the Republican contenders. To an amazing extent, Reagan managed to reshape the party in his own image with his antitax credo, condemnations of an activist government, and hawkish foreign policy.

But as Jacob Weisberg shows in Ronald Reagan, his elegant, insightful biography, Reagan's actual record diverges significantly from the way he presented himself--and from the posthumous conservative mythology about him. Reagan morphed from a New Deal liberal in the late 1940s into a conservative during the 1950s. But once in office, as California governor and then president, he displayed shrewd political instincts and a readiness to compromise. In Sacramento, for example, he signed a "therapeutic abortion" bill that effectively legalized the procedure in California. He doubled state spending on higher education. And he added 145,000 acres to the state park system and approved the strictest emissions regulations in the country. He told an aide, "Anytime I can get 70 percent of what I'm asking for out of a legislative body, I'll take it."

As president, he also was prepared to compromise. After he passed his big tax cut in 1981, Reagan backtracked as the federal deficit soared. According to Weisberg, Reagan agreed to "a five-cent gas tax, followed by a hike in Social Security taxes...