A Videoconference with Michael Deaver
As the 40th president of the United States of American, Ronald Reagan is well known for his Star Wars policy, ending the Cold War, and as being the "actor president." In a videoconference broadcast to university students in Virginia, Washington D.C., New York, and Colorado, Michael Deaver, Reagan's deputy chief of staff, remembered his president and friend.
"One of Reagan's greatest assets all of his life was the fact that he was always underestimated," Deaver said, adding that Reagan loved the fact that people took him for just an actor. It did not take long for the charismatic orator from Illinois to prove otherwise to the world however, first as governor and then as president.
As governor of California from 1966-1974, Reagan was responsible for making decisions that were new to his era, such as the death penalty and abortion. He finally allowed the death penalty to come back when he had to cut all state funding by 10 percent; keeping the prisoners alive cost over $1 million a day. The decision was met with widespread protests and one group decided to ring a bell in honor of the first man put to death under Reagan. According to Deaver, Reagan replied "fine ring the bells, but then ring it one more time for his victim!"
Deaver was with Reagan during the assassination attempt on the president, only two months after he took office. "I could smell the discharge from the bullet . . . but I didn't realize there was a problem until I saw the car swerving across lines on Connecticut Avenue!" Reagan was taken to nearby George Washington University Hospital and survived the gunshot wound to not only complete his term, but run for and win another.
One of the best things about Reagan, according to Deaver, was his friendship across partisan lines. "It's okay to disagree, but not to dislike," was Reagan's style, Deaver said. The president wanted to remain friends after 6 p.m. However, Deaver says that he always made the country's interests his priority, not his own.
"Today the town is far too partisan and divided to do any good," Deaver said. In addition, he added that if Reagan was fighting the current war on terrorism, he would have tried harder to keep the alliance together because he wanted to bring people together more.
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