I saw that speech in real time. It filled me with a sense of patriotism that was overwhelming. Peggy Noonan wrote the speech but, with Reagan, you knew he wasn’t just reading words.
Noonan’s book “What I Saw at the Revolution” (Reagan years) was really good. She said one of the things about being a good speech writer is being around Reagan, learning what he believes, his personality, etc. so one can write stuff like it is coming from him. Plus he would spend lots of time reading and editing each speech.
Each speech needed to be reviewed by all of the various cabinet people too to make sure it lined up with U.S. policies.
On his Berlin Wall speech Reagan added in the line “Mr. Gorbachev - TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!” to the original speech. Well, it was taken out by the State Department. The speech went through numerous reviews and each time Reagan would add the line, and State would take it out.
On the way to the speech in the Limo, Reagan penciled it back in again!