Hailed by many as a history-altering savior responsible for communism’s decline and scorned by others as a clueless, intellectually unsophisticated actor out of touch with both common folks and the real world, Ronald Reagan made a lasting global impact. A new film explores the roots of his confidence, the relationships that nurtured it, and the revolution he inspired.
Love him or loathe him, the former president influenced our world in dramatic ways. He once told a close associate that his solution to the Soviet threat and Cold War was simple: “We win and they lose.” The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the year he left office. The Soviet Union ended in 1991.
Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid, draws from the biography The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, by Grove City College political scientist Paul Kengor. While the term “crusader” often carries pejorative connotations today, Kengor says Soviet leaders regularly used that nickname, convinced Reagan aimed to dismantle communism and the USSR.
The film, like Kengor, dramatically depicts several key life influences shaping the future president. His lifeguarding years in Dixon, Illinois, were formative. For seven consecutive summers from age 16, Reagan guarded the treacherous local Rock River, where swimming was later banned.
“Dutch” Reagan rescued 77 struggling swimmers those summers. His first front-page newspaper coverage came from a particularly challenging after-hours nighttime rescue, and the local paper continued to chronicle his saves.
Kengor credits these rescues with bolstering Reagan’s confidence and self-esteem, qualities that served him well in Hollywood acting and labor negotiations, politics, governing, and international relations as he sought to rescue hurting people. As California governor at a reception, he dove fully clothed into a swimming pool to save a little girl. As president, he once said, “My beloved lifeguarding … may be the best job I ever had.”
The film also emphasizes the profound influence Reagan’s mother, Nelle, had on him. Married to an alcoholic, Nelle was a godly woman and devout church member. Young Dutch saw her reading a faith-filled novel, That Printer of Udell’s, about a young boy with a dying Christian mother and an alcoholic father. Dutch read it, too.
In the novel, after the mother dies, the boy runs away, becomes a tramp, and eventually finds solace and guidance in a supportive church that leads him to practical faith in Jesus. The boy learns public speaking in church and later is elected to Congress.
Upon finishing the book, young Dutch told Nelle he wanted to “declare my faith and be baptized.” God, faith, and moral character became foundational for him. His high school commencement speech quoted Jesus’s offer of “life in all its abundance.” He read Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. And, Kengor writes, “the Great Communicator … learned to speak in a church.”
At his 1981 presidential inauguration, he used his mother’s Bible open to 2 Chronicles 7:14, where Nelle had written in the margin, “A wonderful verse for the healing of a nation.” That verse reads: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Of course, controversy regarding Reagan’s presidency exists, notably the 1986 Iran-Contra scandal. The U.S. secretly sold arms to Iran, violating an embargo, and illegally funneled proceeds to anti-communist Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Reagan first denied then admitted the sales. A special prosecutor concluded Reagan’s conduct supported a “concerted effort to deceive Congress and the public.”
The film does not ignore Reagan’s flaws. Producer Mark Joseph told Newsweek, “The greatest challenge is not to be a super-fan. There’s a lot of us who respect Reagan, but we had to get over that to tell his story. Nobody cares about Superman without Clark Kent.”
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“In our movie, Democrats aren’t Reagan’s enemies,” Joseph continued, “the totalitarian Soviet Empire was.” He noted a scene with Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill praying together as evidencing the film’s bipartisan flavor.
Not a bad example for today.
Rusty Wright is an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents. His columns have been published in newspapers across the country and used by more than 2,000 websites.