Why he meant so much to us
Cool head. It was my personal good fortune to have worked with President Reagan in one of his early confrontations with the Soviet Union. U.S. News 's Moscow correspondent, Nick Daniloff, was seized by the KGB on Labor Day weekend in 1986. The next day, I flew to Moscow to attempt to negotiate his release. When I returned a week later, I met with Reagan and his senior staff and gained some perspective on how the president operated in a crisis. He demonstrated insight, strength, good judgment, and coolness under pressure. His detailed knowledge of what we were doing with the Soviet Union, and of the plight of the American hostages in Beirut, gave the lie to the glib criticisms that he had no head for detail. In the years since then, I have remained a great admirer of Ronald Reagan.
His record, however, was hardly immaculate. The Iran-contra scandal stained his presidency. Huge foreign and domestic debts bloomed. Still, his achievements were striking. It was at great political cost that he supported the high-interest policies of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to break the back of inflation. He was flexible in his tax cuts, reducing the initial excesses but doing enough to see a powerful economic expansion in the last years of his presidency.
Reagan's wit and charm, grace and style, dignity and fearlessness reawakened the sense of national unity in America and inspire respect to this day. When he left office, it was, as he promised, morning in America once again.
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