Free Republic

Ronald Reagan remains the unsolved mystery of modern American politics, breaking rules, defying odds and confounding even people who knew him well and watched him up close. His biographer Edmund Morris described him as "an apparent airhead," not just unknown but unknowable, a man who slept through meetings, read from scripts, mistook anecdotes for analysis and prepared for a summit by watching The Sound of Music. His heirs and allies defend him as the redeeming visionary of the latter 20th century, a man who invited people to underestimate him because it served his purposes. As for the private man,...

The extraordinary friendship between President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - seen by outsiders as an historic alliance of political soulmates - was viewed by Mr Reagan as evidence of divine intervention, according to letters he wrote to her.   Soulmates: the President and the Prime Minister walking together in Paris "Throughout my life, I've always believed that life's path is determined by a Force more powerful than fate. I feel the Lord has brought us together for a profound purpose, and that I have been richly blessed for having known you," he wrote in 1994, days after she delivered...

Former President Ronald Reagan wrote a young widow not to believe that people have only one love in their lives - and not to feel guilty about sex. The note to childhood friend Florence Yerly is one of more than 5,000 penned by the now 92-year-old Reagan, who has been debilitated by Alzheimer's. Yerly's husband had died in 1951 and she wrote Reagan, who had recently divorced first wife Jane Wyman, that she planned on staying single. "Can you believe that God means for millions of really young people to go on through life alone because a war robbed them...

<p>The personal and presidential letters of Ronald Reagan set for release tomorrow show the Great Communicator also was a prolific writer and reveal a more personal side of the former president.</p> <p>Former first lady Nancy Reagan said the collection of more than 1,000 letters in the new book, "Reagan: A Life in Letters," was written in her husband's own hand and gives a first-hand look at his inner thoughts.</p>

Availability: This title will be released on September 23, 2003. Publisher: Free Press; (September 23, 2003) Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Hoover Institution fellows Skinner and the Andersons (all editors of the bestselling Reagan, in His Own Hand) use a carefully arranged and astutely annotated sampling from Reagan's lifetime of correspondence to narrate the arc of "the great communicator" 's life. Always charming, always unassuming, always genuine, Reagan's letters tell the story of his family, his health, his Hollywood and political careers, and his evolution as a political thinker with an authority (and a charm) no other documents can. Reagan...

The Real Reagan Think you know what made him tick? His letters may surprise you By MICHAEL DUFFY AND NANCY GIBBS Sunday, Sep. 21, 2003 Ronald Reagan remains the unsolved mystery of modern American politics, breaking rules, defying odds and confounding even people who knew him well and watched him up close. His biographer Edmund Morris described him as "an apparent airhead," not just unknown but unknowable, a man who slept through meetings, read from scripts, mistook anecdotes for analysis and prepared for a summit by watching The Sound of Music. His heirs and allies defend him as the redeeming...

While recuperating from an assassination attempt in 1981, President Reagan wrote a heartfelt four-page letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, asking if they could work together to reduce the tensions between their nations, according to a new book about Reagan's letters. The book, produced with the cooperation of Nancy Reagan and excerpted in Time magazine, suggests Reagan was more involved in the day-to-day responsibilities of the presidency than some of his critics and former aides have suggested. The Reagan in the letters seems a modest, plainspoken man driven by idealism. "My Dear Mr. President," he said in the Brezhnev letter,...