1918 - 2003
Posted on 06/10/2003 8:48:51 AM PDT by krb
Fox News is reporting that Donald Regan, former Secretary of Treasury and Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan has passed away.
His imperious style made it too easy for him to be the big fall guy for Iran-Contra...
Donald T. Regan was sworn in on January 22, 1981, as the 66th Secretary of the Treasury. President Reagan nominated him on December 11, 1980, when he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch & Company, Inc., the holding company formed by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.
Secretary Regan served as Chairman pro tempore of the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs and as the Administration's chief economic spokesman. The Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs had primary responsibility for advising the President on developing and implementing domestic and international economic policies. Secretary Regan also worked closely with the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board, a group of distinguished nongovernmental economists that met periodically with the President and his senior economic advisors to discuss major economic developments.
In 1981, Secretary Regan was elected Chairman of the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee which was created by Congress to phase out interest rate ceilings on deposits in commercial banks, mutual savings banks, savings and loan associations, and credit unions.
Mr. Regan joined Merrill Lynch in 1946 as an account executive trainee. Following his training, he worked as an account executive in Washington, D.C., and in early 1952, was named Manager of the Trading Department in New York. He became a general partner in the firm in 1954. From 1955 until 1960, he was manager of the Merrill Lynch office in Philadelphia. In 1960, he returned to New York as director of the Administrative Division.
Secretary Regan's innovative leadership of Merrill Lynch was recognized by the board of editors of Fortune Magazine with the Hall of Fame for Business Leadership Award in March 1981.
Mr. Regan is the author of A View from the Street, an analysis of the events on Wall Street during the crisis years of 1969 and 1970, published in 1972 by the New American Library. He also authored many articles published in various financial and business publications.
Secretary Regan was a member of the Policy Committee of the Business Roundtable, a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as Chairman of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1978. He was awarded honorary degrees from four universities. He received the LL.D from the University of Pennsylvania on June 6, 1968, the LL.S from Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana, on December 20, 1969; the LL.S from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 28, 1972, and the Doctor of Commercial Science from the Advisory Council of Pace University in New York, New York on April 3, 1973.
Mr. Regan was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 21, 1918. He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in 1940, joined the United States Marine Corps, and retired at the end of World War II as a lieutenant colonel. He and his wife, the former Ann Buchanan, of Washington, D.C., had four children.
Source: http://www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/dtregan.html
1918 - 2003
Jan. 22, 1981 to Feb. 1, 1985
Under President Reagan
Wow, I wonder how many Cantabrigians of today would do that...
Yep, me too.
After a four-year stint as Treasury secretary (1981-1985), Donald Regan became President Reagan's chief of staff (1985-1987). In this position he had a front-row seat for Reagan's summits with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva and Reykjavik. Regan was interviewed for the COLD WAR series in September 1997.
On Ronald Reagan's foreign policy:
[His priority was] the defeat of the evil empire. He thought that communism was rotten: that it thwarted the marketplace, that it was not good for people, that in spite of its allure as being a sharing of national goods among all the citizens, rather it was an elite that subjugated all of the others. And they used military power in order to deny freedom to anyone over whom they had jurisdiction. They practiced clandestine type of operations to subject smaller nations to overthrow. We saw it creeping into our own hemisphere here, both in Nicaragua and obviously in Cuba, and there are other nations as well. We saw what had happened in Eastern Europe; we saw what had happened in Africa; we saw what was happening in South East Asia; all of this due to the actions of the Soviet Union. And Reagan was determined that the spread of communism had to be halted whatever the cost.
The position that Ronald Reagan took was that in order to defeat communism we had to be strong militarily-wise ourselves. ... It was necessary to defend ourselves and to show the rest of the world that we could stand up to the Soviet Union. You remember that it was Joe Stalin, I believe, who said when referring to the Catholic Church and the Pope, "Where are his divisions?" Well, the communists had that attitude. If you weren't strong and if you couldn't stand up to them militarily, all the threats were to no avail. So Reagan was determined that we would have to have the forces to back up the rhetoric that he was using in trying to show the rest of the world that there was a way out of the dilemma of how to overcome this mighty Soviet Union.
On Ronald Reagan:
Ronald Reagan was a very disarming person. To talk to him, to engage in banter with him, to just see him as a social person, one would say, "How could this be the man of steel? How could this person ever get to be president of the greatest nation on earth?" At least from an economic point of view and soon a military point of view, [people would think]: "This man is not that great." What people didn't realize was that Ronald Reagan had a hard steel inner core, he had spine, he had guts, he had more courage than most people assumed, he did not back off in an argument. He would stand for the few convictions that he had. He didn't try to get into micro-management, he didn't try to get into details; Ronald Reagan had a few basic ideas that he wanted to see accomplished and in so doing he left the details to others. And it appeared that others were running the show, when in point of [fact] they were merely carrying out what Ronald Reagan wanted done. That is the mark of a good executive.
Ronald Reagan as a personality was also a great man. He was congenial, people liked him, he was able to inspire where other politicians before him had not inspired the country to do anything,. Ronald Reagan gave them hope, he gave them courage, he gave them conviction. You were proud to be an American again under Ronald Reagan. You weren't ashamed of the presidency, you weren't ashamed of the fact that Americans were being bullied or kicked around, or that others had more power [or] more smarts than we had. Ronald Reagan was the one that brought our country back to where it had been in the post World War II era. ...
On "Star Wars":
It's a very logical thing, Star Wars, and so much so that I was always amazed, [and] I'm still amazed, that people could rally against it and say that it was stupid. For every thrust there is a parry; for every offensive weapon there has to be a defensive weapon. The ballistic missiles that both we and the Soviet Union had were offensive weapons. They would create mass destruction. Destruction of cities, destruction of people, destruction of goods. [They could] bring a nation to its knees. Wipe out what generations and centuries had produced. These type of weapons needed some type of defense. What is the defense against an intercontinental ballistic missile? It has to be some type of shield. Star Wars was to be that shield. ... Reagan had been told by certain scientists, certain members of the intelligence committee, that yes, this could be produced.
Now let me take you back in time. Suppose we had been talking in terms of 1940, and somebody had said: "We can take a little atom -- an atom is something you can't see but all material is made up of these atoms -- and we can take one of these little things that you can't see, you can't measure it, you don't know how big it is or where it exists. You accept it on blind faith. But when we explode that little atom, it can destroy a whole city." Would you have believed it? Would you have said, "Well, let's try it"? Franklin Roosevelt said yes, and he allowed Dr. Teller and the rest of the Manhattan Project to go ahead to produce the first atomic bomb. Franklin Roosevelt is in history as a hero. For what? Producing an offensive weapon of mass destruction. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, came into office and said, "Hey, we should have something that will stop this, that will prevent people from ever firing one because they know it will be futile, because it will be intercepted and stopped long before it hits its target." An extremely logical position. One that should have been backed much earlier in our history. As soon as the atomic bomb was invented, we should have started having an antidote to it -- some type of anti-nuclear shield or guard. When Reagan proposed that, he was made the butt of all kind of jokes.
On Gorbachev:
From the point of view of the United States, initially Gorbachev was an unknown. As Ronald Reagan used to say, "I'd love to talk to a general secretary or the head of the Soviet Union, provided they would stay in office long enough." But you will recall they kept moving up and dying off and moving up and dying off -- and finally along came Gorbachev. Once we started analyzing the man and looking at his decisions, we realized that he was different than his predecessors. Although reared and trained as a communist, he apparently saw some of the soft spots and some of the weaknesses of communism; and I think he was the first one to give us some indication through his words that all was not well on the domestic side in the Soviet Union, and that he would be inclined to want to do more for the domestic economy and be less meddlesome in the international front and in the military sense. So as we got to know him a little bit, through studying his remarks and observations of our own people regarding him, we came to a feeling that perhaps this is a man with whom we can eventually do business.
On the 1985 U.S.-Soviet summit in Geneva
We of course were always wary that, to use an old expression, we would be buying a pig in a poke. That what Gorbachev might be trying to sell us might be exactly what we shouldn't want to buy. That we should try to stand up for what we wanted, and if he didn't like what we were doing ... and if he thought it was disadvantaging him, then it was all right to continue on that road, because anything that was to our advantage and his disadvantage was something that we wanted to pursue. So we were trying to do a lot of briefing of Ronald Reagan and I must say he was an apt student. Of course he came with a lot of knowledge himself to the task, but briefing books galore were furnished to him practically every night; the poor guy would leave the Oval Office, go to the family quarters, and he would be laden with all kinds of briefing books, documents, things of that nature, to study. And believe it or not the next morning he would come in and they would be not only read, they would be annotated [with] questions or comments or what have you. ...
[The beginning of the summit] set a tone for much of the meeting -- at least in the eyes of the press and through them the general public. As we were standing in the anteroom of the villa [waiting for Gorbachev], the president's aide came in with his overcoat [and] scarf ... and said, "Mr. President, do you want to put your coat on?" And he said, "Oh, I'm not sure." And somebody said, "Well it's very cold outside; you should really wear a coat." And he said, "Oh, I dunno, well I guess if I have to" -- I think the doctors and others would have preferred that he not risk catching a cold during a summit. But nevertheless, while we were still debating it, it was announced that the Soviet cavalcade was at the gates, and so we all had to move to our pre-established positions -- and Reagan turned and without putting on his overcoat walked to the door. The doors were immediately thrown open, because Gorbachev's limo had arrived at the front steps, and so Reagan dashed out[side]. And so there, the older of the two people, "the old man," as the press had described him -- there was much speculation as to whether this "tired old man" president of the United States could keep up with this "wily energetic young vigorous communist" -- to the amazement of the world, the old man goes down the steps. Lickety-split. Meets and greets the Soviet leader who comes out all bundled up in an overcoat, hat and muffler, looking as though he were in Iceland rather than Geneva. And the poor fellow never did recover from that. Because Reagan then, to the amazement of all of us, solicitously put his arm under Gorbachev's to help him up the steps. And that set the tone for the meeting. ...
In the famous fireside chat, the two had really gotten to know each other, and as the saying now goes, they let it all hang out. They understood each other's positions on many things: disarmament, nuclear war, economies, relationships with third countries. They discussed many things in that fireside chat. ... Reagan and Gorbachev got along so well and knew each other so well in those first meetings, that a decision by one was quickly followed by an assent or disagreement by the other. And neither one took offense when there were disagreements. And when there were agreements they stuck to them. ...
[Afterward, Reagan] said that Gorbachev was a likable person, that he had a good personality, that he was forceful, he held his positions. But on the other hand, he was reasonable, he was not dogmatic, he was not inflexible. He was the type of person that might be convinced that if he thought that we were on the level, he could be on the level.
On the 1986 summit in Reykjavik:
[Reagan and Gorbachev] went at it hot and heavy for most of the meetings. ... [It] was in a small room with just the two of them on opposite sides of a small table: almost a table tennis type of match, where it was "ping, pong" -- one saying one thing, one countering, one offering, one declining or accepting, that type of thing. They got along very well, although the negotiations were tough and quite exhausting. I mean, both [Reagan and Gorbachev] got quite a workout over a two-day period. ...
When Reagan would come out of a meeting he would tell us what had gone on in the meeting, or ask us what should we do about this, that, or the other thing. We made decisions quickly, conferred among ourselves, came back to him, tried to give him more ammunition for the meetings -- and I suspect [Gorbachev] was doing the same thing with his staff. ...
Then, at one point in time, Gorbachev said: "I would like to do away with all nuclear weapons." And Reagan hit the table and said, "Well why didn't you say so in the first place! That's exactly what I want to do! And if you want to do away with all the weapons, IÔll agree to do away with all the weapons. Of course we'll do away with all weapons!" "Good," [said Gorbachev]. "That's great, but you must confine SDI to the laboratory." "No I won't," said Reagan. "No way. SDI continues. I told you that I am never going to give up SDI." ...
I believe Reagan was right, because of the history of Soviet treachery. Not to mention the fact that Gorbachev might not have been the leader of the Soviet Union for the rest of time. And how would we trust future successors? How could we trust the Russian military to say, "Yes, our leader has agreed to this and therefore we'll go along with it." How could we trust old-line communists, members of the KGB, to say, "Yes, our leader has said this, therefore we will go along with it?" So not being able to trust them, Reagan said no, and that broke up the meeting.
I have never felt so sad for a person in my life as I did for Ronald Reagan that late fall afternoon as we drove through the gloom, the darkness of Iceland, back to the airport to return home. He had been at it for two days; as he said to me, raising his fingers, "Don, we were THAT close to an agreement, and he wouldn't give in." ...
Reagan had offered to Gorbachev, "Look, we'll let you work with us in the laboratory, put your scientists alongside ours before we test anything on SDI, we will bring you in, show you what we're going to do, have you at the test, so that you will know what we're doing. Together we will develop this and we will use it for the world's shield, not just our shield." Gorbachev wouldn't buy that; he apparently didn't trust the word of Ronald Reagan or that of the United States to live up to a bargain such as that. ...
Gorbachev immediately went on the offense in saying that Reagan had broken up the meeting insisting upon SDI, giving his spin, as it were, to the outcome. And [Secretary of State George] Shultz talked for us and unfortunately the press didn't believe his story ... and it came across that we had been defeated. When in point of fact we had won, because we now know that Gorbachev went home and although he was saying one thing, his mind was telling him: It's all over for the Soviet Union.
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