Ronald Reagan, No. 40
27 November 2022 / 15 January 2023
Dixon, IL / Washington, DC
Perhaps we can thank the town of Dixon, Illinois, for the fall of the Berlin Wall. And not just because it was where Ronald Reagan grew up.
In 1989, Dixon became a sister city to Dikson, in Siberia in the USSR. The relationship began that year as a result of a contact by a Russian journalist, according to the Dixon Sister Cities Association. A local journalist then responded, which led to the relationship between the two cities. It was formalized in Russia in May 1989 by Dikson Mayor Nikolai Kartamychev and Dixon Mayor James Dixon.
Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly said if the two cities could share peace, the countries could
, too. And the wall came down in November 1989.
Alas, Dixon didn’t get a piece of the Berlin Wall when pieces were handed out, but it does have a pretty terrific reproduction, which we discovered as we wandered around town on a cold, raw Thanksgiving weekend. Found in the “Wings of Peace and Freedom Park,” the reproduction comes complete with graffiti as well as a replica marker highlighting Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech and a sculpture of a dove. The park also features three large murals illustrating the wall’s history, from President Kennedy’s time to its destruction. Above, a big peace sign, which lights up, hangs on the side of the city’s historic theater. The little park can be found at the corner of south Galena and E. 2nd streets.
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| Replica of the Berlin Wall |
Reagan had a singular focus on defeating communism from the first day of his presidency, particularly Soviet communism. He famously labeled Russia the “Evil Empire.” Although he initially lifted President Carter’s grain embargo to incentivize better behavior, he thought the best way to thwart Russia was to build up U.S. defenses. Over time U.S. defense spending was increased to about 7 percent of annual spending but in the USSR, it was estimated to be a whopping 25 percent of their budget (Morris, 1999).
In 1983, Reagan started the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based defense system to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. The defense shield, once deployed, would consist of particle beams, chemical rockets, lasers, and x-rays. It was quickly dubbed “Star Wars.” [Tom worked on the environmental permitting for the SDI in the early 1990s, holed up in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIFs) in a downtown Washington, DC “Beltway Bandit” office building. The SDI program was unfunded in 1993.]
And of course, a major contributor to Reagan’s success in tearing apart the Eastern Block was the ascension of liberal Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan felt that Gorbachev, unlike previous Soviet leaders, could be reasoned with.
Reagan’s defense spending is credited for pushing the Russian economy into a tailspin and forcing Gorbachev to institute perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). Within a year of Reagan leaving office, Soviet empire would fold on itself and the Berlin Wall would be torn down. Russian communism was dead after 72 brutal years.
The park was one of our last stops on our tour through Dixon. After driving into town and passing several “home of President Ronald Reagan” signs, we started our day at a cute diner called Flynnie’s. We ordered a very tasty breakfast: Cathy had waffles and sausage, while Tom ate scrambled eggs with sausage and hash browns. Cathy might have had something healthier, but Flynnie’s (on Depot Road, across from a grain elevator), stops serving oatmeal and yogurt parfaits at 11 a.m. on Saturdays. We showed up around noon (darn). National Waffle Day was also the following day, so Cathy thought it appropriate that she commemorate the day a bit early.
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| Inside Flynnie's Diner |
We chatted with our waiter, the son of the owners, and asked him about Reagan. He told us that nobody in Dixon really thinks about the fact that Reagan grew up there. Our first thought was that Dixon was a far cry from Plains, Georgia, which basically worships Jimmy Carter, a valued and integral member of the community.
We showed our waiter a photo of Dixon in March 1981 with a huge crowd holding “Get well, Dutch” signs following the assassination attempt that month. “That’s pretty cool,” he said, “I was born in 1983.” “Your parent may have been in that crowd,” we told him.
And while perhaps the current locals don’t think about Reagan too often, it’s hard to miss his influence, as tributes dot the landscape throughout the city — which we were already discovering.
Those who remember Reagan recall a charming optimist who tried to see the good in people. He was known for his sly sense of humor including the unforgettable comeback during the 1984 presidential debate when he was asked about his “advanced” age of 73 versus that of Democrat Walter Mondale’s 56. He glibly replied, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The audience roared. Even Mondale laughed. (Reagan’s detractors weren’t as kind and called him remote, guarded, overly trusting, not detail oriented and an intellectual lightweight.)
We headed out on the raw, gray, 40-degree day. Thankfully, the rain — which had been coming down hard on the way west from Chicago — stopped as we ventured forth.
Our first stop was the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, which is a bit of a misnomer. Reagan’s family moved in when he was 9, in 1920, and stayed until 1923 before moving on to another house in town. Reagan lived in various houses in Dixon until he was 21.
After attending Eureka College, Reagan became a local radio personality but had a desire to be in the movie industry. A Hollywood friend connection got him a screen test. His athletic build and good looks impressed and he landed a contract. By the time he was 32 years old, he a was top box office draw; rating higher than James Cagney. One of his best-known roles was as the dying George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American.
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| Tom in front of Reagan's home in Dixon, IL |
A statue of a standing, presidential Reagan is on the property outside the visitor center, with the placard sporting a typo (it’s instead of its) that has obviously been fixed up.
After looking through the windows of the house, we drove down to the riverfront, where we discovered a lovely walking path along the Rock River.
The returning
Hollywood star
There in the center of a plaza is another tribute to Reagan, a statue depicting him as a young man on horseback—evoking his celebratory ride leading a parade through the city when he visited in 1950 as a returning Hollywood star.
By that time, Reagan had become a central figure in Hollywood and was elected as president of the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) in 1947, serving until 1952. He even led a strike while SAG president.
We also found a tribute to the Illinois part of the Lincoln Highway, a gazebo featuring interpretive panels detailing the history of the Lincoln Highway as it passed through Dixon (a timely find since Cathy had recently finished reading Amor Towles’ “The Lincoln Highway”).
Next, we walked up the hill along Galena Avenue toward the Dixon Arch that welcomes visitors to town, since Tom wanted to take a picture of the arch from the same angle as the one shown in the book “Dutch.”
That’s when we discovered the Berlin Wall reproduction.
Our last stop was Lowell Park, where Reagan famously spent summers as a lifeguard once he turned 16. Reagan spent seven summers there as a lifeguard, saving 77 swimmers from drowning. The park is on the Rock River, which had a strong current when we checked it out. Reagan often showed visitors to the Oval Office a picture of the river while telling them that lifeguarding was “one of the best jobs I ever had,” according to the official Dixon website. The park
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| Lifeguard Reagan at Lowell Park |
Reagan wasn’t always a conservative Republican. In fact, he was a New Deal Democratic and supported FDR and the New Deal. He campaigned for Harry Truman in 1948. While in Hollywood Reagan actually tried to join the communist party but was turned down because he wasn’t viewed as fervent enough.
Reagan eventually turned against communism and embraced more and more a conservative philosophy. He registered as a Republican in 1962. In 1966, he ran for governor of California as a Republican and defeated Governor Edmund Brown. He was now governor of the world’s sixth largest economy. He fought against programs that he thought rewarded not working. In 1971, he signed the Welfare Reform Act resulting in stricter eligibility standards and compliance monitoring. Eventually 300,000 people were removed from welfare. These successes had an effect across the country and Reagan became a national figure.
In 1976, Reagan shook up the Republican Party and challenged incumbent Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. Reagan didn’t respect that Ford was an unelected president. During Ford’s presidency, Reagan had turned down offers to serve as Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Commerce. The nomination fight was bitter and Ford eked out a narrow win. But he was damaged and a sitting duck for Jimmy Carter.
Four years later, Reagan handily won the Republican nomination and the presidency. The conservative revolution had begun. Reagan famously said: “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem” (Morris, 1999).
Once president, Reagan pushed hard for tax and spending cuts. He embraced the philosophy of economist Arthur Laffer who argued that if tax rates were cut, people and corporations would have more incentive to work--increased tax revenues more than making up for the shortfall in rates. Regan got his tax cuts but not the spending cuts (in fact, spending, led by defense, rose). This caused the national debt to double to $1T. Reagan’s approach was dubbed “Reagonomics.” The country headed into a recession, mostly because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to combat the 13+ percent inflation when Reagan took office. Hard economic times are usually blamed on the president and Reagan’s popularity fell to 35 percent by 1982.
An assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton nearly brought his presidency and his life to an early close. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton after giving a speech to members of the AFL-CIO. If was 2:25 p.m. Six shots were fired in a scant two seconds. Four of those bullets hit Reagan and his party. The Secret Service shoved Reagan into a limo and raced to the George Washington University Hospital. Nobody knew the extent of his injuries. Once at the hospital, Reagan walked into the emergency room and then collapsed. A fragment of one of the .22 caliber Devastator bullets had lodged within an inch of his heart. He was losing blood fast and ultimately lost half of his supply. But, of course, he survived—as did his humor. At one point he quipped to his surgeons, “Please tell me you’re Republicans.” (Morris, 1999). He also told his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” (Morris, 1999). In addition to Reagan, a Secret Service agent suffered a shot in his chest and a Washington policeman took a bullet in his spine. The unluckiest was press secretary James Brady who was shot in the head and would never walk again. (He spent the rest of his life advocating for gun control.) Reagan walked out of the hospital on April 11.
Side door of the
Washington Hilton:
site of the 1981
assassination attempt.
In January, we drove to the site, the side door of the Hilton. We had been through that door many times to register for the annual Washington DC Triathlon or to attend an occasional White House Correspondents’ Dinner. but had never lingered to contemplate the historic significance. On this night, it was full of cars, hotel guests and valets. We couldn’t stay long and had to back out of the scrum.
Reagan’s foray into the Middle East was less successful than his handling of the USSR. In 1983, he sent troops to Lebanon as part of a multi-national force to help quell the civil war rocking the country. In April 1983, a truck bomb struck the American embassy killing 17 Americans and scores of Lebanese. An even worse calamity struck in October the same year when another truck bomb decimated the Marine barracks at Beirut airport and killed 241 marines. By 1984, there were no more American troops in Lebanon.
Still, Reagan was easily elected in 1984, beating Walter Mondale in every state except Mondale’s home state of Minnesota.
His second term was more troubled than his first. In May 1985, he visited Europe to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. As part of that visit, he made an ill-advised side trip to the Bitburg Cemetery knowing there were former SS officers buried there. He said, “Those young men are victims of Nazism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service…They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camp” (Morris, 1999). Margaret Thatcher, usually a strong Reagan ally said that his visit was “deeply offensive and insulting to the memory of the victims…to all who fought in the last war to destroy the Nazi tyranny” (Morris, 1999).
He attempted to even out the faux pas by also visiting the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp the following day. This was where Anne Frank perished. [It was also where Tom’s Jewish Hungarian great aunt Ibi was incarcerated toward the end of the war. Fortunately, she survived. She later told Tom that when they were freed, they were nothing but csont emberek (bone people).]
Further diminishing Reagan’s legacy was the complicated Iran/Contra scandal. Through Israel, the United States sold 2,000+ TOW antitank missiles and 18 Hawk helicopters to Iran in support of their war against Iraq. As a direct result, Iran facilitated the release of seven U.S. hostages. This sale violated the Arms Export Control Act since it should have been reported to Congress. To make matters worse, some of the money was funneled through Swiss bank accounts to Nicaragua to support a group of so called “contras” fighting the Sandinista government. That action violated the Boland Amendment which stipulated no secret funding of the contras. Reagan to his credit was out of the loop but his staff were implicated. Colonel Oliver North headed up the operations and was convicted for his role. (North served no prison time and his conviction was vacated in 1991.) Reagan’s approval rating fell to 46 percent.
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Reagan’s legacy is the emergence of the modern conservative movement and the defeat of the Soviet Union.
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| Always in love (Source: Vogue.com) |
It's impossible to write about Reagan without mentioning his wife Nancy. Their 52 year marriage was a love story. Reagan’s Hollywood nine-year marriage to Jane Wyman had ended in divorce and in Reagan’s words, “along came Nancy Davis and saved my soul.” (Morris, 1999). They were married March 4, 1952. Reagan would write love letters to Nancy that included lines such as “…just waking up becomes a warm glow because you are there….” (Morris, 1999). She was his soulmate and confidante. She was a good judge of people and helped Reagan build and pare his presidential staff. If she sensed that someone wasn’t performing, she would find ways to get rid of them.
DIRECTIONS
Dixon is located on State Highway 52, just under two hours from Chicago.
REFERENCES
Rubenstein, David. 2019. The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians. H.W. Brands on Ronald Reagan. Simon & Schuster. New York, NY.
Morris, Edmund. 1999. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Random House. New York, NY.
Videos
History Channel. 2005. The Presidents: The Lives and Legacies of the 43 Leaders of the United States.
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