An American Life

by Ronald Reagan

  During my remaining four and a half years in the White House, I continued to take a great interest in the changes slowly coming to China. It was still a decidedly Communist country, but in encouraging small businesses and freeing farm workers from their collective farms, allowing them to lease the land they had tilled and to share in the profits from it, they were creating entrepreneurs. Whatever they called it, it was the beginning of a free enterprise system—and with it, they increased agricultural productivity in some areas by almost four times.

  I don’t claim the vision to have foreseen in 1984 all the dramatic changes that came later to the Communist world. But the events in China and Poland made me feel optimistic; they were an exciting glimmer on the horizon, the first public admission in the Communist world that Communism wasn’t working . . . a harbinger of its collapse.

  Only history can tell us where China will go from here. The Chinese leadership’s brutal crackdown on students seeking fundamental democratic rights makes it difficult to chart the future. Those brave students who laid down their lives against the tanks of Tiananmen Square confirmed what I’d always believed: that no totalitarian society can bottle up the instinctive drive of men and women to be free, and that once you give a captive people a little freedom, they’ll demand more. Still, as I watched that drama unfold and learned of the students’ fate, I couldn’t help but wonder if it might not have been better if they had waited and not moved so soon. I understood and sympathized with them, as anyone would, but I knew there were people in their government trying slowly to increase democracy and freedom in China, and the students’ revolt, as courageous as it was, might in the long run have made it more difficult for them to carry out what they were trying to do.

  As I say, the future is hard to predict in China, although I’m still betting on the triumph there of the tidal wave of freedom that is sweeping across our world.

  A few weeks after we got back from China, I left for the economic summit in London, making along the way two unforgettable stopovers.

  In Ireland, we helicoptered to the village of Ballyporeen in County Tipperary. It was from here that my great-grandfather, Michael Reagan, had left for America during the middle of the nineteenth century, at a time of great hardship in his homeland. My father had been orphaned before he was six, and neither he nor I had ever known much about Jack’s side of the family. But presidents sometimes enjoy pleasant perks, and for the occasion of our visit, the Irish government had dug up our roots and introduced me to them.

  In Ballyporeen, a priest showed me the handwritten entry recording the baptism of Michael Reagan in 1829, then we crossed a street to the church where his baptism had taken place. Next, I walked through the town where he grew up, shaking hands with as many people as I could, on the way to a pub that had been named after me. There, I quaffed a beer and was presented with a copy of my family tree researched by Burke’s Peerage; it showed that I was distantly related not only to Queen Elizabeth II, but also to John F. Kennedy.

  At a reception in the pub, our hosts told me they had invited several of my distant relatives, including one who looked quite a bit like me. I’d often been told about people who supposedly bore a resemblance to me, and I’d never been able to see much similarity. But that day I got a shock: They brought in a man in his middle twenties who caused me to do a double-take. It was amazing how much he and I resembled each other—his eyes and hair, his whole facial structure all resembled mine. Since it had been over a century since my great-grandfather had left Ballyporeen for America, it was an eerie experience.

  Coming as the president of the United States to this village where my branch of the Reagan family had been launched, learning that some of my ancestors were buried there in paupers’ graves, was a warming and emotional experience. Although I’ve never been a great one for introspection or dwelling on the past, as I looked down the narrow main street of the little town from which an emigrant named Michael Reagan had set out in pursuit of a dream, I had a flood of thoughts, not only about Michael Reagan, but about his son, my grandfather whom I had never met. I thought of Jack and his Irish stories and the drive he’d always had to get ahead; I thought of my own childhood in Dixon, then leaving that small town for Hollywood and later Washington.

  What an incredible country we lived in, where the great-grandson of a poor immigrant from Ballyporeen could become president. I couldn’t help but think that maybe Jack would have been proud that day. Never had I wished more that he and Nelle were still alive, so they could have been there with me.

  After Ireland and a brief stop in London, we took a helicopter ride over the English Channel to France for ceremonies marking the fortieth anniversary of the D-day invasion of Normandy. The first stop was Pointe du Hoc, where American Rangers, 225 of them, had overcome enormous German resistance and climbed a sheer hundred-foot cliff to gain a critical foothold during the early hours of D day; more than 100 died or were injured during the climb. Sixty-two of the survivors were there for the anniversary; with gray hair and faces weathered by age and life’s experiences, they might have been elderly businessmen, and I suppose some of them were; but these were the boys, some of them just starting to shave at the time, who had given so much, had been so brave at the dawn of the assault. On that windswept point for which so much blood had been spilled, I tried to recount the story of their bravery. I think it was an emotional experience for all of us.

  Afterward, Nancy and I entered a massive concrete pillbox from which, when dawn broke, German soldiers had first seen the five thousand ships of the invasion fleet. Then we flew to Omaha Beach, which was a heartbreaker—the sight of endless rows of white crosses and stars of David—more than nine thousand of them, and they represented only a portion of the casualties of D day.

  President Mitterrand arrived and together we placed wreaths at a memorial, then I gave a speech containing quotes from a letter I’d received a few weeks before from a California woman, Lisa Zanatta Henn, whose father, Private Peter Zanatta, had not yet been twenty when he waded out of a bobbing landing craft in the first wave of invaders at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

  In her letter, Lisa said her father always dreamed of returning to Normandy. “Someday, Lis, I’ll go back,” he said, “I’ll go back and I’ll see it all again. I’ll see the beach, the barricades and the graves. I’ll put a flower on the graves of the guys I knew and on the grave of the unknown soldier—all the guys I fought with.” But, she said, he had died of cancer a few years earlier without ever fulfilling his dream, and she had written to me to ask if she could attend the anniversary celebration as his representative.

  “My father watched many of his friends be killed,” she wrote. “I know that he must have died inside a little each time. But his explanation to me was: ‘You did what you had to do and you kept on going.’”

  All her life, Lisa said, she had heard stories from her father about D day. “He never considered himself or what he had done as anything special,” she said. “He was just an ordinary guy, with immigrant Italian parents who never really had enough money. But he was a proud man—proud of his heritage, proud of his country, proud that he had fought in World War II and proud that he lived through D-Day.”

  We arranged for Lisa and her family to be a part of our delegation and her words, speaking for her father, somehow seemed to speak for all of the men who had risked their lives that morning in the defense of liberty, including those lying beneath the endless horizon of white crosses. “He made me feel the fear of being on that boat waiting to land,” I said, quoting Lisa’s letter. “I can smell the ocean and feel the seasickness. I can see the looks on his fellow soldiers’ faces, the fear, the anguish, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. And when they landed, I can feel the strength and courage of the men who took those first steps through the tide to what must have surely looked like instant death . . .”

  After a few minutes, it was all but impossible to go on. My voice began to crack. But I managed to get through it and was glad when
I reached the end: “Through the words of his loving daughter, who is here with us today, a D-day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far better than any presidents can. It is enough for us to say about Private Zanatta and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”

  Less than a year later, I was speaking at the site of another World War II cemetery in Europe. It was a memorable experience for a different reason.

  When I accepted an invitation from Chancellor Helmut Kohl to make a state visit to West Germany following the Bonn economic summit that was scheduled in the spring of 1985, I agreed with him that it would be an appropriate moment for us to mark not only the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II, but also the beginning of forty years of peace and friendship between two former enemies. After I agreed to the visit, I received an invitation from a German politician who represented a region around Munich to visit Dachau, the infamous Nazi concentration camp located near Munich, during my trip. Since I was to be an official visitor of the federal government, I felt it wasn’t up to me to choose my itinerary, so I turned down his invitation. (Subsequently I was told that the letter had come from one of Kohl’s rivals, who wanted me to visit his district for his own political reasons.)

  When the West German government announced that my projected itinerary would include a stop at a military cemetery at Bitburg, Jewish organizations in our country complained that among the two thousand or so buried there were forty-eight SS storm troopers—something our advance team hadn’t known when they agreed to the schedule. The Jewish organizations argued that I should insist on canceling the visit to Bitburg and go instead to Dachau.

  Even Nancy was against me this time. Excerpts from my diary will give readers an idea of what my life was like during this period:

  April 4-14

  During most of the week, the press has had a field day assailing me because I’d accepted Helmut Kohl’s invitation to visit a German military cemetery during our visit to Bonn. I had turned down a not-official invite from a West German politician to visit Dachau in his district. All of this was portrayed as being willing to honor former Nazis but trying to forget the Holocaust. Helmut had in mind observing the end of World War II anniversary as the end of hatred and the beginning of friendship and peace that has lasted 40 years. I have repeatedly said we must never forget the Holocaust and remember it so it will never happen again. But some of our Jewish friends are now on the warpath. There is no way I’ll back down and run for cover. However, Helmut is upset and thinks this may become such an uproar it will color the whole Economic Summit. He may change the program. We’ll wait and see. I still think we were right. Yes. The German soldiers were the enemy and part of the whole Nazi hate era. But we won and we killed those soldiers. What is wrong with saying, “Let’s never be enemies again”? Would Helmut be wrong if he visited Arlington Cemetery on one of his US visits?

  Today, Walter Annenberg called. His news wire had picked up a Pravda story lacing into me about the Jewish slight in my not going to Dachau. I want to respond to Pravda and point out that today 40 years after the Holocaust, the Soviets are the only ones officially practicing anti-Semitism.

  April 15

  . . . a cable arrived from Helmut Kohl and Mike Deaver took off to Germany. Helmut may very well have solved our problem re the Holocaust. The invite I turned down about a visit to Dachau was a private thing. Helmut is making it official. He’ll invite me to visit the camp as well as the cemetery. I can accept both now that it’s official.

  April 16

  After lunch with VP, went to E.O.B. [the White House Executive Office Building] to speak to conference on religious liberty. Prior to that we went into my German problem again. The press has the bit in their teeth and are stirring up as much trouble as they can. At the close of my speech I made a statement acknowledging that we had been confused about the Dachau suggestion—that it was part of the official itinerary and that I was going to visit the Bitburg German cemetery and a concentration camp.

  April 19

  A brief signing ceremony opened the day, then we got back to my “Dreyfus” case—the trip to a German cemetery. I told our people . . . there was no way I could back away in the face of the criticism which grows more shrill as the press continues to clamor. Mike Deaver is back and said Kohl was going to phone me. Our ambassador Arthur Burns met several hours with Kohl. Our people want me to suggest a national German war memorial as a substitute for the military cemetery. I said only if it presented no problems for Kohl. The call came while we were meeting. Helmut told me the camp would be Bergen-Belsen, not Dachau. Then he told me my remarks about the dead soldiers being victims of Nazism as the Jews in the Holocaust were, had been well received in Germany. He was emphatic that to cancel the cemetery now would be a disaster in his country and an insult to the German people. I told him I would not cancel.

  While I was on the phone to Kohl, the VP was in the room with our gang hearing my end of the call. He wrote me this note:

  “Mr. President, I was very proud of your stand. If I can help absorb some heat, send me into battle—It’s not easy, but you are right!!

  George”

  Then we brought in Elie Wiesel, survivor of the Holocaust and several others who were on hand for the Jewish Heritage Week Ceremony in which I was presenting Elie with the Congressional gold medal. I explained the situation to them and made some gains even if later Elie in his prepared remarks implored me not to visit the cemetery. We’ve invited Elie to accompany me on the trip. He’s said yes except that he won’t be present at the cemetery.

  April 20-21 Camp David

  Weather wonderful, in the 80’s—swam both days and rode on Saturday. Sunday an early return. Nancy went on to Calif. . . . just for overnight, to see a house. That comes under the heading of looking ahead. Mermie [my daughter Maureen] here for dinner.

  April 26

  Sen. Metzenbaum along with others . . . got a non-binding resolution passed asking Germany to let me out of the Bitburg cemetery visit. Unfortunately, some of our Republicans went along. Well, I don’t want out. I think I am doing what is morally right.

  April 27

  A day of reading my eyes out, briefing materials for trip. The press is still chewing on the Bitburg visit. I’ll just keep on praying.

  April 28

  More homework. A nice day and lunch on the Truman balcony. Called Jerry Ford to thank him for his words re Bitburg. I’m worried about Nancy. She’s uptight about the situation and nothing I can say can wind her down. I’ll pray about that too.

  April 29

  Getaway day. I’m scratching at drafts of some of the 14 speeches I’ll be giving in Europe. We had a Cabinet Council meeting, another on the tax simplification plan. We’re making some progress. Then a short meeting with our three head negotiators who are home on recess from the Geneva arms talks. Nothing much to report. . .

  I hope I’m not being too optimistic but it seems there are a few signs that the Bitburg issue may be turning . . .

  9:25 p.m.: A statement to the press before boarding Marine I on our way to Bonn. We tried something new for jet lag. There is a six hour time change so we took off at 10 p.m. AF I Washington time, it was already 4 a.m. Wednesday in Bonn. The flight was seven hours and 25 minutes. We got on board and went right to bed. I won’t say we slept well but got a fair amount of shut eye. We also set our clocks to Bonn time, so in effect we were going to bed at 4 a.m. and due to arrive at 11:25 a.m. It worked. We were met by Ambassador and Mrs. Burns and Foreign Minister and Mrs. Genscher. Then we boarded Marine I and helicoptered to Schloss Gymnisch, the castle now used as a guest house by the German government. We had stayed there on our 1982 visit. . . .

  As the time for my visit to the cemetery approached, the drumbeat of criticism got more and more strident, some of it implying that my refusal to cancel the trip proved I was anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi. No
one, I think, was more unhappy with my determination to go ahead with the visit—she’d call it stubbornness—than Nancy.

  Contrary to some of the speculation about her, Nancy only rarely tried to influence me when I was president. But on Bitburg, she let me know her opinion. She is not one to shout or be critical when she disagrees with me. Most of the time, she’ll just go over the points she believes in, perhaps during dinner, then say in her quiet voice something like: “Do you think it’s really a good idea for you to do that?” or “I don’t think I’d say that anymore if I were you. . . .” Whenever she speaks up like that, I know she’s trying to protect me; she isn’t trying to interfere with how I do my job, she just wants to keep me out of trouble.

  I have always valued Nancy’s opinion and, frankly, I’m not sure a man could be a good president without a wife who is willing to express her opinions with the frankness that grows out of a solid marriage. In a good marriage, husband and wife are best friends; if you can’t trust your wife to be honest with you, whom can you trust? She’ll tell you things nobody else will, sometimes things you don’t want to hear, but isn’t that how it should be? I wouldn’t want a wife who sat across from me at dinner mentally disagreeing with me but afraid to speak up and express an opinion. No, Nancy was my best friend and I wanted to know how she felt.

  She argued that my visit to the Bitburg cemetery would be offensive to Jews and make me look insensitive to those who had died in the Holocaust. I told her that once I’d accepted the invitation, I could not embarrass Helmut Kohl by canceling the visit. But that wasn’t the only reason I refused to cancel.

  I didn’t think it was right to keep on punishing every German for the Holocaust, including generations not yet born in the time of Hitler. I don’t think all Germans deserve to bear the stigma for everything he did. As I mentioned earlier, during the last days of the war, I saw an Army Signal Corps film with searing images of German villagers being taken to death camps near their homes. They were discovering for the first time what Hitler had done. I knew that from the looks of sickening disbelief and disgust on their faces. A lot of Germans never knew what had happened until after the war. Meanwhile, the modern German government has attempted to come to grips with the horrors of Hitler’s monstrous crimes by keeping memories of them alive; it has turned former concentration camps into museums of death containing the most horrifying pictures you have ever seen, and encouraged German schoolchildren to visit the museums and look at the pictures.