European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 14, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Paga 10 the stars and stripes columns James Kilpatrick Regan s Book the Best by far of curse once be love it or loathe it Donald Regan s Memoir for the record is by far the by of the curse and ill books 10 come from former members of the Reagan admin is ration. He might have borrowed a better title from John Osborne s play this is a look Back in anger. Over the past couple of years we have had a spate of autobiographical works but none hat been a work of comparable mayhem. Don Regan s Book is something else entirely. For one thing he wrote i him self. It suffers from none of the spectral Gauz iness of the professional ghost. Other memoirist have worked in water colors Regan uses raw pie men is. Straight from tic lube. One is reminded of Crom Well s famous instructions to Pricr Lely paint my picture truly like me. And not flatter me at All but remark All these rough Nesses pimples wans and every thing As you Sec Here we see the Ragan White House As Regan saw it during his four years As Secretary of the Treasury and two years As the president s chief of staff. No portrait is More vivid than Regan s own self portrait. We see him warn and All a Man of tremendous ego. Undoubted ability and supreme self Confidence. He is vain Touchy and Impe rious. He wears his overweening Pride like a roman Toga. Time after ump he acknowledges his anger he Speaks and acts in my bullish he storms out of 3 meeting. He hangs up on Nancy Reagan before she can hang up on him. His blood is constantly rising. This is an old Marine a fighting Man who scorns the Marquis of Queens Berry rules he hits below the Belt and in the kidneys he uses brass knocks Bayonet Lead pipe shillelagh stiletto any old weapon will do. Thus he storms at poisonous lies about the president and my he denounces the perfidy of for Mer speaker tip o Neill his resentment at his unceremonious ouster largely at the instigation of Nancy Rea Gan explodes like a lanced boil. Most of the press attention rightly has been drawn toward Regan s revelation of one of the Best kept Politi Cal secrets of recent years mrs. Hagan Flora Lewis Malin and his a nonet regularly consulted with a san Francisco Asir Logist Joan quigly and imposed her advice on Good Days bad Days and iffy Days on the president s staff. Press conferences were delayed important speeches were scheduled and rescheduled decisions were put off until the Friend could rend the stars. Regan does not contend that any substantive policy decisions Ever were affected by this curious absorption on the tint lady s part. The whole thing is bizarre. Those who have known Nancy Reagan As a woman of surpassing Charm and Grace Are bound to be startled at her trusting fascination with pure hokum. The vengeful Regan docs not Slop with painting Nancy As a Little Flaky. Be paints her As a combination of medea lady Macbeth Agrippina and the Witch of Endor he specifically places her in a league with the infamous Livia grand Mother to Claudius who preferred to is Sassi Nale her enemies by slow pc depicts mrs. Reagan As a plotter a manipulator a Dagger a heartless Hen Pecker who sought to tire a dying Bill Casey at Christmas of last year now and then Mcgan grudgingly acknowledges that Nancy was motivated Only by her obsessive desire to protect the husband she loves. Otherwise the first lady emerges As first shrew. The president is painted Wilh greater subtlety but with no less devastating malice. Regan Prises his one time Friend with delicate excess he cannot say enough about Reagan s sunny and open personality his Cheri Ness his amiability his optimistic considerate courteous de Meanor. Reagan n deeply compassionate and patriotic he is an achiever of great he is punctual disciplined widely read a master of the Good Story. Having said All that Regan ends his Book with a wicked twist of the knife. After the ouster in february 1987, when the humiliated chief of staff was ignominiously turned out the president sent Regan a dear Don note of appreciation com plete with an Irish Blessing May god hold you in the hollow of his in my Lime Wilh president says the author wining his bloody pen i had seen Many such letters and so i knew someone else had written it for a new Day to reflect on communist countries the strains of attempting i mild Reform in communist countries these Days provoke reflections on old political and even deeper human issues. Change is necessary and inevitable but it always brings pain. Violent revolutions make subset Ucol change even harder not Only because they concentrate Power beyond civil Challenge but also because they instill such an attachment to order slab Lily and predictability and such a fear of risk. A remarkable series in the new York Tim i on How Ordinary soviet citizens Are experiencing Mikhail Gorba Chev s program illuminates the difficulties. Poland re Mains in an abrasive debilitating deadlock because the people Don t believe the government and the government does t want and does t know How to believe the people. China is groping for a smoother Way to effective development after two generations of bloody turmoil guided by a totalitarian vision. But it has destroyed both the old institutions and the new system of beliefs that provided Assurance. As the 35-year-old film director Chen Kaige snid recently the chinese people today Are torn by contradictions. China is More open compared with before and that is Good. But now pc pm can t decide what is right or ideology can be an irritant to the free spirited but it can be a Comfort to Many thus even the dissident soviet poet Joseph Brodsky l prize Winner now living in new York rises Toa Nobel s a vigorous defense of the soviet Union against mild charges of imperialism and colonialism from Eastern europeans. It was at an unusual writers conference in Lisbon. The europeans from countries under soviet Dominion talked about soviet tanks and the russians were astounded clinging to their notion of themselves As liberators and virtuous allies. The concept often trial Europe is not known to soviet citizens Brodsky said tartly supporting his compatriots from Moscow by simplifying and proclaiming ideology makes the world easier to understand even if it does 1 make life easier. But a time comes when inability to deliver on its promises empties it of All bul nostalgia for a purer brighter vision. The american historian Fritz Stem has colled marxism a self negating prophecy and he sees Gorbachev As a kind of Martin Luther challenging the old legitimacy that had been corroded by failure and corruption. Now the communist countries Are haying to Grap ple with what they made of marxism. Its inherent values and misjudge cols Ore made More evident. Obviously Marx was right in noting the historic injustices commuted by possessors of Power. Be was wrong in concluding that Power is determined by property and that wiping out property would wipe out injustice. He wrote in the period of change from Rural basically Feudal to Industrial society. Industry is achieved by organization at a much higher level of labor of the niemans of production of decision making. It implies one kind of concentration of Power. It has always been known that coagulated Power is necessary for achievement by a society but economic Power is not the Only kind. Power is implicit in human relations. Man a a social animal. There is an urge to share to nurture and protect and also an urge to dominate. This May item t contradiction bul it is 10 inextricable sides of in single human condition. There is a physical vulnerability that obliges people to band together for survival and Well being. And Luttre is a capacity for ingenuity for innovation and imagination that not Only encourages bul requires self assertion. The framers of the american Constitution focused on political Power not economic relying on people self conscious sense to use leverage for balance. They did t dream of removing Power from human la Lions As marxist theory fantasizes but made a Point of separating and dispersing Power so it could counter abuse. The Rule of Law they propounded assumes the existence of Power to enforce the Laws but under rules thai prevent its arbitrary use and excessive concentration. And it facilitates and ideals Are human needs. But they must produce human Benefit in the world we know. A disillusioned mozambican communist Coro Mcnunn on the revival of the Church in his ravaged country at the difference is we re expected to deliver our promises in this world. They Don Piave to
