Transcript: Chapter 05

Narrator: Reagan was rescued from obscurity when General Electric signed him to host a weekly television series, GE Theater, at an annual salary of one hundred twenty five thousand dollars. Every Sunday evening, Ronald Reagan visited Americans in their living rooms.

Reagan: Our play tonight, is about a home away from home, a problem facing one of our military families on occupation duty overseas. Now to Colonel Wheeler, a doctor in the regular army, home is wherever he is quartered at the convenience of the government.

Narrator: His role as celebrity spokesman took him to GE plants across the country. After 17 years in Hollywood, Reagan was reacquainting himself with America.

Cannon: GE was perfect for him. And the reason it was is that he was able to get out on the road and talk to people at a long distance from anybody else, speeches that were rarely covered, and if covered at all, were covered in the hometown newspaper. And there were no national coverage.

And he was able to, he was free to make mistakes. It was a kind of apprenticeship that isn't there for most people, and he made the most of it.

Narrator: Initially, Reagan regaled his listeners with anecdotes about Hollywood and his fight against Communists. But soon his speeches broadened to include other concerns.

Cannon: This was a company that was basically a middle class company. Most of the workers identified with the middle class and a lot of them identified with the concerns of management that there were too many restrictions on them.

Narrator: Reagan picked up on the grumblings of GE executives and employees, angry about government intrusion and rising taxes. "I realized the enemy was big government," he later wrote. Reagan had found his political mission. He would fight Communism and big government. He delivered his message with evangelical zeal across the nation. After eight years on the GE circuit Reagan emerged as a recognized conservative spokesman. Now a wealthy man, he was able to provide for his family "the California Dream."

Ron Reagan: He's always wanted a ranch and almost always had one. That would probably have been the place where all of us probably spent the most time with him. He made sure we all had horses at a relatively early age.

Patti Davis: I have a lot of happy memories with my father when I was younger and I was, I tried to keep up with him athletically because it was, you know, something I loved but it was also a way to spend time with him.

Both my brother and I learned to swim probably before we could walk. My father, having been a lifeguard, believed that you just learned to swim and then you are not ever going to get into trouble.

Ron Reagan: So he made sure that we had swimming lessons and he also used to test us every once in a while. You know, throw us. Just to see if we could react quickly, and you know and not panic, and you know be able to find the side. And he would play with us in the pool and we'd ride on his back and all that kind of stuff.

Patti Davis: He used to give birthday parties for either me or Ron out at the ranch and hire a man who had this trick horse or who could I don't know count with his hooves or something, I don't know.

Ron Reagan: The fact that it was this horse. There was always the same guy with the same horse and the same dog. The same Dalmatian and the same pinto pony birthday party after birthday party at the Malibu ranch, whether it was Patti or me there he'd be.

Patti Davis: It was sort of that Ozzie and Harriet kind of home. No family is entirely harmonious. I mean, Ozzie and Harriet weren't harmonious in their real life either. Of course it's not, of course not. But that's what we wanted to think families were in the fifties.

Ron Reagan: We were conscious, I think, growing up, all of us, I know I was, that there were really two sets of people, two definite and distinct sets of people involved in the family. There was my mother and father, and there was everybody else. And that while we were all part of the family, when push came to shove there was a distinction to be made.

That you know it really wasn't like, you know, be seen and not heard, but it was you know we were expected to put ourselves in second place to whatever they were doing.

Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, we take pride in presenting a thoughtful address by Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan.

Reagan: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Narrator: Reagan burst onto the national political scene in 1964 with a televised address on behalf of conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.

Reagan: I have spent most of my life as a Democrat; I have recently seen fit to follow another course.

Narrator: President Lyndon Johnson had just declared his War on Poverty, expanding the role of government.

Morris: "The Speech" as it's known amongst Reaganauts. That was the culmination of ... the quintessence of all his speeches honed on the GE circuit. All of the catch phrases that he'd found worked well, all the ideology that he'd polished during his years as a GE corporate spokesman and emerging political orator, it all came together at this moment.

Reagan: This is the issue of this election whether we believe in our capacity for self government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Narrator: Time Magazine called The Speech "the one bright spot in a dismal campaign." Although it could not rescue Goldwater from defeat, it placed Reagan on the cutting edge of conservative politics.

Edwin Meese: There was still a big government groundswell among the liberal elements, and certainly the idea of conservatism as we know it today was not something politicians embraced very eagerly, nor did the voting public. So in that sense Ronald Reagan was ahead of his time.

Narrator: Reagan's maverick attack on big government brought him to the attention of California entrepreneurs who were searching for a candidate to run for governor in 1966. "That speech ..." Reagan remembered, "led me onto a path I never expected to take."

back to top