Ronald Reagan

As the nation mourned the passing of President Ronald Wilson Reagan, AEI scholars hailed this great American leader whose principles and accomplishments continue to influence public policy debates. Edited excerpts from a selection of tributes follow; the full text of these and other articles are available at this page.

"Without [Reagan's] leadership, it is not so clear that the Soviet Union would have collapsed 'on its own,' as in retrospect it seemed to do. . . . It was Ronald Reagan, by his arms buildup and his inability to contemplate anything but an American victory, that persuaded the Soviet leaders they were fighting a losing war. And so they folded their tents and stole away."

--Irving Kristol, AEI senior fellow

"[Ronald] Reagan made clear that the democratic West could and would counter Soviet military power, outperform the Communist world in science and technology, and provide material well-being for citizens beyond Moscow's wildest dreams. He would not miss an opportunity to contrast Western freedom with the misery of Soviet tyranny.

"Ronald Reagan embodied American optimism. His leadership, confident and cheerful, was instrumental in the demoralization of the Soviet leadership that produced a Western victory without war and ended half a century of conflict between East and West."

--Richard Perle, AEI resident fellow and assistant secretary of defense
for international security policy (1981-1987)

"Ronald Reagan's faith that Marxist socialism and Soviet communism would swiftly be consigned to the 'dustbin of history' was vindicated within a year of his departure from office. His certainty that free markets not only enrich human beings but liberate and empower them has been proven true from Silicon Valley to Samarkand. Even his bitterest opponents had to acknowledge that he rescued from despair and self-doubt a nation demoralized by foreign policy humiliations and economic weakness-and did it by the sheer force of his graceful, cheerful, smiling optimism and generosity of spirit."

--David Frum, AEI resident fellow

"Just as [Franklin D. Roosevelt] cast a long shadow over the next generation of American political life, Reagan's shadow over our subsequent political course is proving to be similarly long and may still be lengthening.

"Meanwhile, Reagan's ideas of tax cuts and missile defense have proved to be durable staples of politics today. Reagan, it should be recalled, began as an insurgent in the Republican Party, battling the party establishment. Today the Republican establishment says, 'We are all Reaganites now.' Like FDR, he effected a wholesale transformation of his party."

--Steven F. Hayward, AEI's F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow
and author of The Age of Reagan 1964-1980: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order
(the first of two volumes)

"Taxes, which had been rising since the New Deal, were reduced, and, for a time, the principle of progressive taxation on income--dominant in the United States since the New Deal--had lost ground to alternative principles.

"The seemingly uncontrollable trend to greater centralization of power in the national government was reversed. . . .

"From diverse experience, Ronald Reagan forged a philosophy that was optimistic, democratic, internationalist, and twentieth-century American. At its core is faith in the free individual."

--Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, AEI senior fellow
and U.S. permanent representative to the UN (1981-1985)

"Ronald Reagan, in my experience, was not an ordinary man--but he reflected what is best in ordinary men and women, and frequently absent in politicians: a genuine concern for the sensibilities and dignity of others, modesty and humility despite his high office, a sunny optimism, a sense of humor about himself, a faith in the essential goodness of everyone he encountered, and a quiet, polite, and gentle demeanor at all times and to all around him. In other words, he was the very embodiment of the best in the people who elected him twice to the country's highest office. Given the demands and compromises thrust upon politicians in our democracy, it is a small miracle that a person of his quality and character reached the presidency at all."

--Peter J. Wallison, AEI resident fellow, general counsel to the U.S. Treasury (1981-1985), counsel to the president (1986-1987), and author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency