Starring: |
Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Talia Shire |
Directed by: |
Sylvester Stallone |
Viewed by the Reagans: |
January 31, 1986 |
Starring: |
Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson |
Directed by: |
Warren Beatty |
Viewed by the Reagans: |
December 8, 1981 |
Starring: |
Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell |
Directed by: |
John Milius |
Viewed by the Reagans: |
September 7, 1984 |
The Films That Set the Tone for an Era
In May 1983 a filmmaker named Timothy Anderson met with the Reagan image guru Michael Deaver to discuss a project he claimed to have conceived, a sequel to the popular Rocky movies, in which the actor Sylvester Stallone, as world champion Rocky Balboa, takes on a Soviet boxer in what Anderson called “a very great motion picture with a wide range of positive results.” Also in attendance at that meeting was Stallone himself.I
That Stallone was one of the most prominent Hollywood supporters of Ronald Reagan (Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck were others) was not a secret. He and his then girlfriend Brigitte Nielsen would later receive a coveted invitation to an October 1985 White House state dinner honoring Singapore’s president, Lee Kuan Yew. That occasion would lead to an interesting interaction with Stallone: he called the White House to ensure that he and Nielsen would be seated together. (Apparently, she felt uncomfortable with strangers.) As it happened, I fielded the call. I told the actor I’d see what I could do, but made no promises. I called the social secretary, who conveyed the request to Mrs. Reagan. To encourage conversations with others around the table, Mrs. Reagan had a long-standing policy of separating guests from their spouses or dates at such dinners. But above all else, Mrs. Reagan wanted guests to be comfortable and enjoy the evening. In Stallone and Nielsen’s case, she made an exception, and they sat together.
At the event, which the actors Raquel Welch and Michael J. Fox also attended, Stallone told reporters, “It’s always flattering to have the highest person in the land admire your work.”II He promised Reagan a Rambo poster if the president would give him a poster of himself in return.III The president had quipped after dealing with a hostage crisis, “I saw Rambo last night, and now I know what to do the next time this happens.”IV
The Washington Post reported about another guest at that state dinner, in a note that can now be read only with tragic poignancy: “[Christa] McAuliffe, the teacher who is training for the Shuttle Challenger mission, sat next to the president last night. She said he had talked about his Hollywood career. ‘He told us a lot of stories about when he was in films,’ she said. ‘He also said maybe I could take some papers to grade with me in space.’ ”
Later in 1985, Stallone invited the Reagans to attend his wedding and reception in Beverly Hills. The president, who liked Stallone but was not particularly close to him, was unable to attend, though he did send a telegram expressing his wish that “the joy of your wedding day always be yours to share and may God bless and watch over you.”V
Popular culture linked the president and Stallone’s work. A bumper sticker showed up in the eighties that said, “Rocky was a Republican.” The Rocky series did have more than a tinge of the conservative ethos. It emphasized hard work, personal responsibility and determination, and celebrated the hardworking American who dreams of one day doing something great. Which, of course, is why it made perfect sense to send the legendary “Italian Stallion,” Rocky Balboa’s nickname in the films, to battle Communism in Russia. This was the plot of the fourth movie in the series.
In 1983, early in the development of Rocky IV, Timothy Anderson was concerned about the production schedule for the film. “I assume that you realize the positive impact that my version of Rocky IV could have upon the electorate should it be released in midsummer 1984,” he wrote Deaver. “The story has a strong message of courage and confrontation of evil, in spite of the fact that the hero has periodic cause to question his own strength and durability. This runs very specific parallels to the basic tenets of the president’s foreign policy as well as the manner in which he handles certain difficult domestic problems.” Anderson urged Deaver to impress upon Stallone an “expedited schedule” to ensure that the movie premiered before the president’s reelection.
I learned a lot from Mike, an unassuming man in horn-rimmed glasses whose official title was deputy chief of staff. He was an indispensable member of the Reagan team but never sought credit or attention. He also protected both Reagans. Once on the 1980 campaign plane, at the end of a long day, candidate Reagan wandered back to the press section and engaged in banter with reporters. Deaver raced to his side, looking nervous, but Bill Plante of CBS News whispered to him, “Relax, Mike. He’s okay.” At an off-the-record meeting with reporters shortly after the 1981 assassination attempt, Deaver beseeched the press not to report on Reagan’s wearing a bulletproof vest. Reporters wanted to know why, and Mike said, with genuine worry, “Because it tells a person to shoot for his head.” Silence followed. Though Deaver knew both Reagans far better than Jim Baker, the chief of staff, Deaver let Baker run the show. He and the Reagans knew Baker would be better at operating the levers of government.
Deaver concentrated instead on the Reagan image. He had an ability to read the president’s moods, knew what settings would work for him, and how he would react. He understood “stagecraft” and how to convey messages through symbols and events. He was always on the lookout for “moments” that would help cement Reagan’s history, but he also knew when to say no. During a 1984 event with Michael Jackson, a staff member suggested to Deaver that the president shake the singer’s hand while wearing a white “glitter glove” to match Jackson’s trademark accouterment. That was going too far. The idea was nixed.VI
I’m sure that Deaver, with his keen, searching eye for moments advantageous to the Reagan image, saw the potential of the fourth installment of the Rocky franchise to help the 1984 reelection campaign. Not that the president needed much help. And the White House wasn’t above using Hollywood films, and celebrities, to support the administration’s message. Such interplay between DC and Tinseltown was in its infancy, compared with today. For example, during the Reagan years, the White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner was so boring it was referred to as a “nerd prom.” In recent years, it has become a Hollywood star-studded event, including press coverage of arrivals on a red carpet.
Despite Deaver’s foresight in meeting with the filmmakers, the timing did not line up: Rocky IV didn’t premiere until November 1985, a full year after Reagan’s forty-nine-state landslide. To make matters even more interesting, the version that hit theaters was not the same one that Anderson, Stallone, and Deaver had discussed in 1983. A legal dispute arose later between Anderson and Stallone over who owned the rights to that particular story. It was ultimately settled out of court. Stallone wrote the final version of Rocky IV.
Rocky IV, which centers on tense, brutal confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in the boxing ring, coincided with the first real thaw in Soviet-American relations since well before President Reagan took office. The new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was widely credited for the change. With his Western mannerisms and intellectual-minded wife, Raisa, “Gorby” was a different kind of Soviet leader. Compared with his predecessors, he was more open about Communism’s shortcomings. The president liked Gorbachev personally and enjoyed telling him jokes. Asked if he was concerned about the growing popularity of his Soviet counterpart, Reagan put the situation into proper perspective. “I don’t resent his popularity or anything else,” he said. “Good Lord, I costarred with Errol Flynn once.”VII
The same month of Rocky IV’s release, Reagan, Gorbachev, and their wives met for the first time at a crucial summit in Geneva. There was another Reagan in attendance as well: Ron Reagan, the president’s son, a talented writer covering the 1985 summit for Playboy. He never asked for special access or favors. He worked hard at a small space in the Press Filing Center at the InterContinental Hotel there and never used his status to his advantage. Neither of his parents asked that he be treated differently, but since Ron and I knew each other, I checked in with him from time to time during the summit. One evening, after all of the events were done and he had filed his story, Ron joined me and two magazine photographers for dinner. Then we went to a casino. When he showed his driver’s license to enter the casino, the security guard looked at the name and did a double take.
The Reagans were always especially happy when Ron was at Camp David. He sometimes came up with his wife, Doria, for a day of horseback riding. The rides, Ron told me later, were “my fondest memories.” One reason was that he could see his dad in the best of spirits. “As you know, my father was seldom happier than when he was on the back of a horse,” Ron said. But he also confided a secret.
When Nancy decided she wanted to marry Ronald Reagan, she realized that she’d have to fall in love with horseback riding, too. Yet for all of the times Mrs. Reagan joined her husband on horseback, she never truly enjoyed it. The president was blissfully unaware of this, even after decades of marriage.
“My mother was less than thrilled about this activity but would gamely participate to please her husband,” Ron said. “She took pains to hide from him her anxiety about saddling up.”
Once, while Ron and Doria were out riding with his parents, the president decided to have a little fun, going from a lazy stroll to a gentle canter. Everyone in the riding party did the same. As Nancy bobbed uncomfortably up and down on her horse, she called out to her husband, “Honey! Doria wants to slow down.”
This, as Ron recalled, was accompanied by a nervous look in Doria’s direction to ascertain whether her daughter-in-law (who was, in fact, quite content with the faster pace) would contradict her.
As Ron told it, “Doria, as usual, did the kind and sensible thing under the circumstances and let this little deception go unchallenged.”
Movie nights were certainly less intense than the horseback rides. The Reagans were both relaxed as we prepared to view Rocky IV. The Reagans liked the Rocky films—and as far as I knew, they’d seen all of them. (We’d watched Rocky III together at Camp David in 1982.) Rocky IV was a special iteration of the familiar saga of the poor-but-proud Philadelphia fighter who made his way to an improbable world championship. In this case, the film’s stakes were far higher: it was literally a test of the free world versus the Soviet machine, which took the form of rival boxer Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. (Drago’s wife is played by Stallone’s future spouse, Brigitte Nielsen.)
The plot of the film was simplistic. The Soviets boast of building the world’s greatest fighter, a muscled warrior and Olympic champion who in manner and appearance seemed more like a machine than a human being. Lundgren utters forty-six words in the entire ninety-one-minute film.VIII A televised exhibition fight with the American boxer Apollo Creed, Rocky’s friend and former opponent, goes awry when Drago beats Creed to death. For extra pathos, Creed dies in Rocky’s arms in the middle of the ring. Rocky agrees to fight Drago at a match in the Soviet Union to avenge his friend.
As the rivals train for the upcoming bout, the differences in their conditioning styles showcase the wide gap between their characters and the worlds from which they come. In a trademark Rocky training montage, Drago flexes his muscles hooked up to all manner of computers and instruments while intent Soviet scientists look on, determined to craft the perfect fighting machine. And they have no compunction about cheating. Drago is shown being injected with a needle presumably full of steroids. Rocky Balboa, on the other hand, sequestered for his own training in a remote Siberian cabin, works out the old-fashioned way by lifting logs and rocks and scaling mountains—not to mention outrunning the sinister KGB agents who trail his every move.
That scene reminds me of one of Reagan’s favorite stories about the difference between our societies, which he shared in a speech in Nebraska in 1987:
“And you young people who are here, let me tell you a little true incident. A scholar from our country recently took a trip to the Soviet Union. He happens to be able to speak Russian fluently. In the taxi that was taking him to the airport in this country—a young fellow—and in conversation with him discovered that the taxi driver was a student, working his way through school. And he asked him what did he want to be? And the young fellow said, ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ Well, by coincidence, he got another young fellow driving the cab in Moscow. And he got in conversation with him, in Russian, and found out that he was a student and working at the same time. And he said, ‘What do you want to be?’ Just remember this difference between two countries. This young man said, ‘They haven’t told me yet.’ That’s the difference.”IX
Rocky’s fight with Drago became a metaphor for the ongoing battle with the Soviet Union, at least as it was seen in the West at the time. The Soviets are fierce, humorless, and aggressive. They boo Rocky when he appears to fight. The full politburo shuffles into the arena to watch the bout, including a grim-faced actor who resembles Gorbachev. Rocky, in turn, is all heart, emotion, and resilience. As the fight goes on, and he never gives up, he improbably turns the cheering Soviets to his side. Winning a come-from-behind victory, the bloody but unbroken Rocky delivers a somewhat incoherent mini-lecture to the assembled crowd and, by extension, the Soviet Union:
During this fight, I’ve seen a lot of changing. I didn’t know what to expect. I seen a lot of people hate me, and I didn’t know what to feel about that, so I guess they didn’t like much nothin’ either. During this fight, I’ve seen a lot of changing, the way yous feel about me, and in the way I felt about you. In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that’s better than twenty million. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!
In the film, even the Gorbachev-like character rises and applauds the American fighter. The other apparatchiks seated around him then stand and follow his lead.
It was easy to see why a number of conservatives hailed the film as the “greatest Cold War movie ever made.”X (CNN recently listed the film as one of the top five Cold War films of all time.XI) It was also easy to see why those who supported negotiations and coexistence with the Soviets were less enthusiastic. A reviewer in the New York Times lamented, “Outside the boxing arena, the greatest victory is compromise, a message Rocky refuses to learn, and a lesson his fans will never accept.”XII Roger Ebert was unimpressed, calling the film the Rocky series’s “last gasp, a film so predictable that viewing it is like watching one of those old sitcoms where the characters never change and the same situations turn up again and again.”XIII
Rocky IV infuriated the Soviets. A group of cultural officials from the Soviet Union denounced the film by name (along with Stallone’s Rambo series and Red Dawn). One, Yevgeny Yevtushenko—a poet, an ardent anti-Stalinist and a frequent critic of Soviet government, and a proponent of glasnost—grouped those movies together as “war-nography.”XIV The Soviet minister of culture expressed bafflement at why the films were being shown, since they seemed to contradict the Reagan administration’s expressions of hope for improved relations. This stance demonstrated another difference between capitalist and Communist regimes. The Soviets controlled their media, along with the arts and entertainment industries, and assumed that the American government did the same. There was also more than a little hypocrisy in their comments. As the New York Times reported at the time, Americans were “often harshly depicted in Soviet films,”XV citing a 1984 television miniseries that depicted Americans as murderers and a 1983 film that showed them to be “violent psychopaths.”XVI
Paradoxically, as was often the case behind the Iron Curtain, films castigated by the Soviet government for anti-Communist sentiments were sought by its citizens. In Moscow, Rocky IV was said to be in high demand.XVII The American public clamored to see the film, which grossed $300 million, making it the highest-grossing sports movie of all time. It held that record for decades, finally surpassed by 2009’s The Blind Side.
After Rocky IV was over, none of the viewers at Camp David were impressed by the depth of the plot. The president quipped, “It had a very happy ending. He beats the Russians.”XVIII He marveled at Stallone’s physique—“the time he must spend in the gym!”—and said that both he and “the fella playing the Russian” looked like Mr. America.
Reagan the viewer soon gave way to Reagan the film industry insider. The president commented that the movie offered some of the most realistic fight scenes he’d ever seen. By way of demonstration, he treated us to a lesson in Hollywood stunt work. He showed us how, in his day, fights were staged on movie sets to make it look as convincing as possible without hurting anyone.
Of course, he reminded us, that didn’t always work. Reagan shared about how he once accidentally landed a real-life punch on a stuntman while filming a fight scene. The following week, that stuntman was replaced by his roommate, who returned the favor to Reagan by “popping him in the left eye,” according to Tom Carter, the military aide at Camp David that night, who remembered the story vividly.XIX
In Reagan’s view, Rocky IV put the stunt-fighting techniques of his day to shame. “To me, it looked like they were swatting each other,” he remarked. Then the president pointed out something that only a trained eye would notice: “They can dub in the sound for a blow, but you can’t dub in the sweat flying all over the place from a blow.”XX
Reagan’s eye for filmmaking did not deceive him. Rocky IV’s fight scenes were realistic, even more than our little group gathered for movie night could have imagined. The president had no way of knowing that while filming one scene in the boxing ring, Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed, was thrown three feet by Dolph Lundgren. He apparently threatened to quit the movie. Stallone himself was hit so hard by one punch that his breastbone slammed against his heart. Rushed to the hospital, he was in the intensive care unit for more than a week.XXI
Regardless of how much Reagan admired Stallone and the film, his generosity had its limits. When Stallone’s people reached out to the White House offering to present the president with the gloves and robe worn by Rocky in the film, a young White House lawyer weighed in against the idea.
“Rocky IV is a current Christmas season release, and [United Artists studio head Jerry] Weintraub’s offer seems a rather transparent publicity stunt to promote the film,” he wrote in a memo. “With the Rambo comments and White House dinner invitation, the president has already given Stallone more than his fair share of free publicity.” That young lawyer was associate White House counsel John G. Roberts, Jr., who went on to become chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
By January 1986, when they watched Rocky IV, the Reagans had seen a number of other movies with a Soviet theme. One of the first of these was Reds, which was released in 1981, the year the Reagans moved into the White House. Reds told the story of John Reed, an American journalist and Communist activist, known for his firsthand, pro-Bolshevik account of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ten Days That Shook the World. Warren Beatty produced, wrote, and directed the film. He also starred as Reed, while his off-screen girlfriend Diane Keaton played Reed’s love interest, the political activist and writer Louise Bryant.
Ronald Reagan had come to know Beatty when the younger man first arrived in Hollywood. They were friends despite their political differences. When Reds came out, the president invited Beatty to screen the movie at the White House. Beatty recalled that Reagan “was very complimentary about the fact that I had produced it, written it, acted in it, and directed it at the same time.”XXII The president appreciated all of the effort involved with each of these elements of the filmmaking process and no doubt admired anyone who could juggle them all as effectively as Beatty did in Reds. He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Reds was nominated for twelve Oscars, winning three. Beatty himself had been nominated in the writing, acting, and directing categories, winning for best director.
Despite Reagan’s appreciation for his friend’s hard work, he found nothing romantic about the Bolshevik Revolution the movie portrayed. At a twenty-fifth-anniversary showing of the film in 2006, Beatty admitted that Reagan was “probably not sympathetic to the characters in the movie.”XXIII But that is not to say he viewed them hard-heartedly. After watching the doomed young leftists Reed and Bryant struggle through love and war for more than three hours, the president offered Beatty a characteristically Reaganesque comment: “I was kind of hoping for a happy ending.”
It is thanks to Beatty’s and Reagan’s enduring friendship that we have one of the sharpest observations attributed to President Reagan. He once told Beatty, whom California Democrats often fantasized about running for various offices, “I don’t know how anybody can serve in public office without being an actor.”XXIV He was not, of course, suggesting that all politicians were empty suits who could bluff their way through by acting. Reagan’s training as an actor gave him the skills and the style he needed to communicate effectively, whether it was working a small gathering of supporters, a tense Cabinet meeting, or a speech in front of tens of thousands. A politician must have vision, but an actor’s particular skills can be a big help in sharing that vision with others.
If Reds was pro–Soviet Union, Red Dawn, which the Reagans watched at Camp David on September 7, 1984, was its opposite. This film, the product of the maverick director John Milius, presents the provocative, if unlikely, scenario of a Russian invasion of the continental United States, with assistance from its Communist allies in Latin America (some of whom infiltrate over the southern border posing as illegal immigrants). The movie opens with Soviet paratroopers landing on the football field of an all-American high school in an all-American small town: the fictional Calumet, Colorado. One of their first acts is to machine-gun a history teacher and then turn their fire on shocked students. It doesn’t get much more nuanced from there.
A group of students led by brothers Jed and Matt Eckert (played by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, respectively) flee into the mountains and become resistance fighters against the occupying Communist forces. They call themselves the Wolverines, after their high school’s team mascot (or, as one Soviet officer refers to it, “the local youth sports collective”). Other members of the group are played by 1980s teen movie stars C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey (who would star with Swayze three years later in Dirty Dancing). Some place Red Dawn among the so-called Brat Pack movies, except this time the Brats pack heat.
The violence of the film, and that much of it was committed by and against high school students, surprised a lot of people. The critics pounced. Bob Thomas of the Associated Press decried the violence, while the Los Angeles Times review remarked that “the battle scenes are neither dramatic nor convincing, merely brutal.”XXV It was the first movie to carry the newly created PG-13 rating.XXVI Condemned along with the violence was the movie’s anti-Communist, even pro-war, stance. The New York Times called it “incorrigibly gung-ho,” while the LA Times carped that director Milius “spent too much time playing to the rabid anti-Commies.”XXVII
Audiences, however, were more receptive. Red Dawn earned $10.5 million in its first five days in theaters, taking the top box office spot away from Ghostbusters. A woman who saw the movie in Anaheim, California, reported, “I have never seen an audience reach such a fever pitch,” while another theatergoer recalled “high moments where people were shouting ‘Wolverines!’ ”XXVIII A few weeks after Red Dawn’s release, the Associated Press wrote a feature story on the differing responses to the film from critics and moviegoers, which included the headline “Viewers Cheer It While Critics Jeer.”XXIX
I cannot recall any specific cheering or jeering from the Reagans when they watched the movie in Aspen in September 1984, about a month after its nationwide release. They generally disapproved of movies with over-the-top violence. Red Dawn did have some friends in Washington, however. Former secretary of state Alexander Haig, who had left the Reagan administration in 1982, had since joined the board of MGM/UA Entertainment Company, the studio that released Red Dawn. He called it “one of the most realistic and provocative films that I have ever seen,” adding that it offered “a clear lesson to all viewers, and that is the importance of American strength to protect the peace we have enjoyed throughout history.” To Haig, America’s “military posture” was key to preventing events such as those depicted in Red Dawn.
Haig had even organized a private screening in Washington before the movie hit theaters. Several prominent figures in the defense and intelligence establishments attended, including General Edward Rowny, Reagan’s chief negotiator on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and the Soviet Union. First proposed by President Reagan in 1982, the treaty limited and reduced strategic offensive arms. Signed in 1991, it went into effect in 1994. Also on hand was former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Admiral Stansfield Turner; and former ambassador to the Soviet Union Walter Stoessel, who had also served in Reagan’s State Department. At a reception before the screening, Rowny said he came out of loyalty to Haig and didn’t know what the movie was about. When informed, he winced and said, “I hope he doesn’t get me in trouble here,” adding, “I want to go back and negotiate with the Soviets.” Stoessel, before going into the screening, said he’d heard the movie was “a slam-bang thing,” and commented, “I hope the good guys win.”XXX
After the movie, however, the foreign policy experts had less to say. Turner refused to speak to a Washington Post reporter on the scene, and Stoessel said simply, “It makes you think.” Rowny called the movie “provocative” and made clear he wasn’t saying anything more: “I’m going to be diplomatic. Silence is golden, and I’m going to glitter.”XXXI
Reagan watched Red Dawn at an interesting point in US-Soviet relations. He was in the midst of the 1984 reelection campaign, and committed to maintaining the strong stance against the Soviet Union that he had promised the American people in 1980 and held to throughout his first term. The year before, in 1983, he had referred to the USSR as an “evil empire” and announced plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative, later dubbed “Star Wars.” He aimed to show the Russians that the United States meant to win the Cold War.
The very day of the Red Dawn screening, Reagan met at the White House with Secretary of State George Shultz to discuss a dramatic prospect: an upcoming meeting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, who would be in the United States later in September for the United Nations General Assembly session. That afternoon, as Reagan noted in his diary, it was “off to Camp David.”XXXII
But not without first facing the usual gauntlet of reporters gathered to witness his departure from the White House. The rest and relaxation (and Red Dawn) would have to wait. As we made our way to the helicopter on the South Lawn at about three thirty that afternoon, the press bombarded Reagan with questions. They asked him about his planned appointment of Edwin Meese III to serve as attorney general and about some comments made by Walter Mondale on the campaign trail. “Do you think that God is a Republican, as Mondale charges?” To that, Reagan responded, “I have no answer to any of those things that what’s-his-name said.” He did banter with the reporters about the nature of religion and politics but soon continued toward Marine One. Among the last questions shouted after him were “Will you meet with Gromyko? Are you going to try to meet with Gromyko?”XXXIII The president kept the answer to himself. That evening, we watched Red Dawn in his cabin.
The next day, September 8, Reagan noted, was a “beautiful day.” He took one of his beloved horseback rides around the mountain trails. He also delivered his “radio talk”: this week, on education. When Reagan commented in his speech that “violence and disorder have no place in our schools,” I wonder if he might have been thinking of the violence and disorder the high school resistance fighters had got up to in the previous night’s movie.XXXIV
On Monday the 9th, instead of returning directly to the White House, the president took the helicopter north to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to speak at a Polish-American festival held at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa. He gave a rousing speech to a crowd that he later recorded as forty thousand.XXXV The throng consisted mostly of Polish Americans whose ancestral homes had been overtaken by the Communists. Reagan’s language was strong:
“Our country’s days of apologizing are over. America is standing tall again, and don’t let anyone tell you we’re any less dedicated to peace because we want a strong America. I’ve known four wars—four wars—in my lifetime, and not one of them came about because we were too strong. Weakness is the greatest enemy of peace.”XXXVI
The New York Times might have described this language the same way it described Red Dawn: “incorrigibly gung-ho.” But the audience loved it. A few lines later, the president was interrupted by chants of “Four more years!”
Two days later, on September 11, President Reagan announced to the press that he would meet with Foreign Minister Gromyko later in the month. They met first in New York, and later had a three-and-a-half-hour discussion in Washington. It was the first high-level meeting with a Soviet official of Reagan’s presidency. Some reporters noted that the announcement came just after Reagan had watched the stridently anti-Communist Red Dawn and reiterated his commitment to peace through strength in Pennsylvania. Even before his later successes with Gorbachev, Reagan knew that strength and diplomacy were not mutually exclusive. He also knew how to keep everyone guessing.
After one Friday night screening in Aspen of a movie that featured Communists—it may have been Red Dawn, but I can’t be certain—we had our usual discussion at the fireplace. I spoke up and said something that sounded a bit “un-American.” What it was and why I said it, I cannot recall, but it caused the president to quip, “You sound like those Communists in the movie we just saw.” I smiled sheepishly and said, “I think he just painted me red.”
Everyone, including the president and I, had a good laugh. I went back to my cabin, off to bed, and didn’t give the incident a second thought. During the president’s radio address at Laurel Lodge the next day, everything was as usual. Good moods all around. But that night in Aspen, when the entire group gathered for the Saturday evening movie, the president spoke up.
“Say, last night I said something silly about Mark and Communists,” he said to everyone. “I’m sorry if I implied he had the wrong ideas. Of course he doesn’t. He’s part of the family.” I was touched but mystified. I hadn’t been bothered at all by the joking the night before, and I hoped the president wasn’t either. We all then took our seats and settled in for the weekend’s second screening.
After the movie ended and the lights came up, I walked over to Mrs. Reagan and said in a low voice, “That was so nice of the president to say, but he did not need to at all. I was fine.” She replied, “I know, but Ronnie felt very bad about it.” I asked her why he did not mention it at the radio address earlier, and she explained, “We talked about that, but he thought it was important to say it in front of the whole group.”
Of course he didn’t think I was some kind of Communist. Casual banter like that was part of the fun of movie nights. But it showed how seriously Reagan took the Communist threat that he went out of his way to explain himself. Communism was no joke for a man whose job it was to go toe-to-toe with the Soviets. And it showed how much both Reagans cared about doing right by their people—by those who were, as he kindly called me, “part of the family.”