Original subtitles

[man] Hey, hey. Hey. Hey, hey. Gentlemen?

[indistinct conversations]

[man] All right? All right.

[man] Glad to have you in Mississippi.

Governor, welcome to Mississippi.

Thank you so much for coming again.

dramatic music

[cheers and applause]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[cheers and applause]

[cheering]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[crowd] R, R, R-E-A.

G, G, G-A-N.

R-E-A, G-A-N.

Reagan, Reagan! Go, Reagan!

[crowd] We vote Reagan! We vote Reagan!

We vote Reagan! We vote Reagan!

[man] This time, it's a real pleasure

to present to you Ronald Reagan. Governor.

[cheers and applause]

[Lopez] In 1980, Ronald Reagan

wins the Republican nomination for President,

and he faces an incredibly important decision--

how will he introduce himself to the country?

Nancy and I have never seen anything like this,

because there isn't anything like this any more than...

[cheers and applause]

[Lopez] He has a letter from a Southern official

that invites him to come down to Neshoba County

to the county fair there.

Neshoba County was infamous for one reason and one reason only.

[man] This is backwoods Mississippi,

silent and suspicious.

It is hostile country with a hostile attitude

towards civil rights workers.

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,

and Michael Schwerner went to Mississippi

to help register Negroes as voters.

[man] They have been missing since Sunday.

They've been the focus of a whole country's concern.

[Lopez] 1964, three civil rights workers were kidnapped,

lynched, their bodies stuffed in an earthen dam,

and not found for over a month.

[Lopez] 16 years later,

there wasn't a voter alive in Neshoba County

who hadn't been alive

when those three civil rights workers were killed.

[cheers and applause]

[Wiley] He chose that place to stand up

and look at the white South and say,

"I'm for states' rights."

[Lopez] This phrase, "states' rights,"

was prevalent across the South.

We are defending the right of the people of Virginia

and of Alabama to decide some questions for themselves.

Get back to conservative government, state rights.

Not just the saying, "states' rights,"

but the real meaning of states' rights.

"States' rights" has always in the South meant

the North can't tell us what to do about race.

And the federal government can't tell us

that Black people are equal.

It cannot tell us to integrate our schools.

It was a flat out signal to an old South

that thought the Civil War was not over.

[woman] The real purpose of Reagan's trip is a speech

to the Urban League in New York tomorrow on Black unemployment.

In Mississippi, it was difficult to find

a Black face in the crowd.

[Johnson] He is saying to white America,

"You can trust me.

"You can trust me to make sure that the forces of change

in civil rights and equality will not affect your life,"

and he received little or no criticism for that.

It's one of the reasons Reagan's record on race

has not been sufficiently examined,

and we're suffering for the consequences to that today.

Our guest today on Meet The Press

is screen and television actor, Ronald Reagan,

who this week announced he would seek

the Republican nomination for Governor of California.

We've reached a period

in which the philosophical differences

between the two parties are so great

that it's high time that more people from the rank and file

of the citizenry involve themselves

so that we can have government that's of and by

as well as for the people.

[Lopez] Ronald Reagan developed the political persona

that we know in the 1960s.

[crowd cheering]

[male reporter] It is not always possible to tell the real

from the unreal, the actual from the artificial,

truth from fiction.

Just so you all know, what you have been watching

is a Hollywood movie premiere.

What you are about to see is a California political campaign.

[marching band music playing]

[klaxon horn honking]

[horn honks]

[Ron Jr.] When he began his political career,

I remember him saying that,

well, he didn't know about running

for Governor of California,

but he would go out and make some speeches.

[applause]

He would judge the audience reaction to that.

And if the audience seemed to want him to run

for Governor of California,

well, then, sure he wouldn't-- he wouldn't let them down.

For a long time, America sophisticates

couldn't take Ronald Reagan seriously.

As an actor, he had seemed corny to them.

And remember, Boraxo Powdered Hand Soap.

[man] As a politician, he seemed improbable.

[man] Ronald Reagan has played many roles.

This year, he wants to play governor.

[Brown] You know, I'm running against an actor.

No shot at Abraham Lincoln, don't you think?

[laughter]

You know, the press just love to call him

a fading actor or "B" actor,

and that upset him.

[Ronald] The manner in which the other team

has been campaigning, it's time that some people

are reminded that actors are people.

[Nancy] Decision to run for Governor--

that was a mutual decision that we both,

um, spent a couple of very sleepless nights over.

My wife, Nancy.

[Nancy] That meant a major change in our lives.

It had to be a mutual decision.

[Ron Jr.] When my parents entered politics,

the whole new cast of characters arrived.

I was used to, you know, Jimmy Cagney

coming over around Christmas.

But now there's this whole political crowd,

new kind of money people.

That was a new social circle for them.

My mother was much more socially focused

and acutely focused than my father was.

She understood the value

of having wealthy, powerful friends.

And she was much more involved

in cultivating those friendships.

[Nancy] Thank you all for your work.

Both my husband and I appreciate it.

Reagan was running for Governor against Pat Brown...

[crowd cheering]

And he was a liberal New Deal politician.

Brown created this tremendous infrastructure in California.

Ordinary folks wondered, "Why are my taxes going up?"

And there's Ronnie Reagan ready to take advantage of it.

He's been singing this song about big government,

and it plays well.

You know, for a number of years,

I have been protesting the growth of government.

We have increased our population 18%.

We've increased the number of recipients of welfare 49%.

At that time, conservatism was very much on the fringes

of American politics.

Remember, Ronald Reagan campaigned

for Goldwater in 1964.

Barry Goldwater stood

in the middle of what was happening in America,

and it was still screaming segregation forever.

So for Reagan to attach himself so comfortably

was a sign of where he wanted to go long term.

Governor Brown also called you a party crasher this morning.

- I know. - Said that you're not in

the, uh, progressive Republican side of your party.

Well...

[man] He's called federal aid education a tool of tyranny.

[Brown] He opposed Social Security.

He wanted to make it voluntary.

On the Redwoods, he feels that we have enough

of the natural resources of our state.

These are all taken from speeches that he's made

either recently or during the past four or five years.

I think his refusal to denounce the John Birch Society

as almost every other Republican leader

in the United States has done,

I think all of these things indicate a philosophy

that would be very dangerous to the people of our state.

The John Birch Society was this fringe group

that believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories,

some of them anti-communist, some of them are just

absolutely absurd fluoride in the water

being intentionally put there to dumb down American voters,

concentration camps in Alaska.

Most of the membership came out of the Republican Party,

and it was a problem for Republicans.

For a political operative like Stu Spencer,

his fear was that Reagan had gotten ahold of a bad script,

and that bad script could be supplied

by the John Birch Society,

because some things are apropos to talk about

and some things not.

[Lopez] They also had a very strong strain

of anti-Black racism.

[Wiley] There was a concerted far right effort

to undermine the legitimacy of the civil rights movement

and the demands for equality

that included even attacking Martin Luther King, Jr.

as a communist even though he wasn't.

One of the things that happened in this country

as a result of winning passage of civil rights

was literally a fracturing of what white politics had been.

The arc of the moral universe is long,

but it bends toward justice.

[Wiley] You have people who left the Democratic Party

and became Republicans

because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[Ronald] I spent most of my life as a Democrat,

and I recall very well

when the moment came to change and to re-register,

when the leadership of the Democratic party

repudiated the constitutional concepts

of individual freedom and local autonomy,

and states' rights,

and the little intellectual elite

in the nation's capital can engage in social tinkering,

then I say to you, you didn't leave your party.

The leadership of that party left you.

[cheers and applause]

[man] White America watches in horror

as the people of Watts, California, riot,

crying, "Burn, baby, burn."

[man] It began with the arrest by white officers

of the California Highway Patrol of two young Negroes.

There was an argument. There was a scuffle.

By then, a crowd of several hundred Negroes had gathered,

and the story of police brutality

quickly spread through the community.

[officer] Put your hands up.

-Get them up. -Get your hands up.

[Wiley] The Watts uprising was very much

an expression of pain and anger

at the failure of society to recognize

what Black people had been asking for for generations,

which was a fair shot

at being able to support yourself and your family.

It was also very frightening for people who were white.

It was the notion that,

"This could spill over into my community."

And so it's very easy for Ronald Reagan then

to come in and manipulate that fear.

California also leads in some things

that unfortunately give us no sense of pride.

The only thing that's gone up more than spending is crime.

Our city streets are jungle paths after dark.

[Lopez] Reagan used the term "jungle paths" to talk about

the areas in our cities populated by African Americans.

This was a way to trigger racist stereotypes.

He used these terms that hearkened back to Africa.

[Ronald] The jungle is closing in on this little patch

that we have been civilizing for so long a time.

[Shearer] Reagan is in effect saying,

"These are people who are breaking the law,

and I will protect you against them."

We need law and order,

and that's exactly what Reagan campaigned on.

You wanted law and order in this town. You got it.

[gunshot]

When white people heard "law and order,"

they heard him saying,

"I am going to stop the hordes of liberals

and Black and brown people from invading your neighborhood."

[Wiley] They bring violence. They bring crime.

All of those are deeply imbedded stereotypes

that get played out in that tough-on-crime stance.

patriotic music

[Lopez] In 1966, it's no longer acceptable

for a political figure to use explicitly racist terms.

So a new language developed, and Ronald Reagan was a pioneer.

It was a language that allowed people

to oppose integration on a principle

that supposedly had nothing to do with race.

That's what dog whistle politics is.

The use of coded language to trigger

unacceptable social hatreds

while pretending that's not what you're doing.

Reagan can turn around and say, "Me?

I didn't say anything about race.

I just mentioned people commit crimes,

gangs, inner cities,

a pathological culture, no respect for work,

jungle paths, nothing about race there at all."

[helicopter blades whirring]

[man] Do you think the Fair Housing Act in California

is an ineffective or a bad method

of assuring open housing?

It runs the risk of by President giving to government a power

that government should not have,

and this is the infringement on the right

of the individual to private possessions

and the control ownership of those possessions.

When he ran for Governor, fair housing

anti-discrimination was a big issue.

classical cello music

You have to remember in the '50s you could not sell your house

to a Black person.

This wasn't your private choice.

This was imposed upon you

by the entire real estate industry.

Under federal housing programs,

banks would not loan to African Americans

if they tried to live in white neighborhoods.

This was legalized segregation.

[woman] Everybody that lives here has been hassling me.

[man] Why?

Because you're not safe walking the streets at night.

You cannot leave the house.

The people were frightened to death of integration.

They thought, "This will hurt our schools.

It'll make our neighborhood unsafe.

Therefore the only thing I have in value in this world,

my house, will lose its value." It was the hottest issue.

Will you lose your neighborhood? That was it.

[Lopez] While campaigning, Reagan would say,

"I'm against prejudice,

but I also support property rights."

And one of the inherent rights of property

is the right to dispose of it any way a person sees fit,

even if that meant not selling to African Americans.

That's a classic dog whistle.

[Ronald] I do not believe that we can without in seriously

endangering our basic freedoms, that we can violate

this constitutional right of the individual.

But I myself, I'll tell you now, do not subscribe to it.

I'm willing to sell my house. A matter of fact

if there's anyone listening wants to buy to a farm,

I've got a farm for sale right now.

[Derek] In effect, Reagan's definition of freedom

included the so-called freedom to discriminate.

[crowd cheering]

[Wiley] He understood that there were many white voters

in California who, because of racial integration,

did not want to see their lives changed.

He's sounding a message that has appeal--

"I warned people that this actor's gonna defeat Pat Brown,"

and it turned out to be true.

Place your left hand upon the Bible

and raise your right hand.

[Lopez] Reagan had demonstrated that racial resentment

wasn't confined to the white supremacist South.

Even in California you could use race as way to win votes.

dramatic music

My native country, thee

Land of the noble free

Thy name I love

casual xylophone jazz music

[indistinct conversations]

[Nancy] Mr. and Mrs. Deacon Anderson.

-Mr. Reagan, Mrs. Kent. -[woman] Hello,

-Hello, Reagan. -From Carmel.

-Good to see you. Hello. -Hello there. Oh!

-Oh, my friend. -A pleasure.

Oh, yes, your friend, your dearest friend.

How are you? It's nice that you can be here.

Oh, we're so thrilled to be here.

-Nice to see you. -Hello.

[Kelley] When Nancy became First Lady of California,

first of all, she was fit to be tied

to have to leave Beverly Hills and go to Sacramento.

I mean, she loved the fact that Ronnie was governor

but Sacramento? No, she did not like that at all.

[Ron Jr.] The original Governor's mansion

was this Victorian wedding cake of a place,

this four-story thing with the cupola on top and, you know,

all these stairways and rooms that were never used,

so you could spend a lot of time exploring this big house.

It was kind of cool for a little kid,

but on the other hand, it was right downtown,

with a motel and two gas stations

on the other corner.

[man] Nancy shows some other governors' wives

California's Governor's Mansion.

-[Nancy] Quite a busy street. -[woman] I should say so.

All the freeway traffic comes here.

-There's no grounds around. -[Nancy] No.

It's unfortunate.

It's--It's just gotten surrounded by the city.

[woman] Yeah.

[Nancy] It's lovely to look at,

but it really does need some paint, doesn't it?

intriguing orchestral music

There the jelly beans. [laughs] Ronnie loves jelly beans.

[woman] Is this your son's decision?

-Oh, this is my husband. -Oh, your husband?

When I said Ronnie, I meant big Ronnie.

[laughter]

[Spencer] When she and I went out to see the mansion

for the first time,

they had ropes on the second story over fire escapes.

They had two young kids at the time,

and she looks at me and she just,

"I'm not living there." [laughs]

[Nancy] Don't you find every governor's wife

and every governor that I've ever talked to,

they want a home.

They don't want to be there. All day they're in downtown,

but... -They really do need it.

The job itself, just you really need someplace

to get away from it all. -[Nancy] Yes, you do.

[traffic light clicks]

[Kelley] She really made quite a scene about it

and said she wouldn't live there.

Well, if she wasn't gonna live in it,

the governor wasn't gonna live in it.

[Nancy] Something should've been done a long, long time ago,

and it's awful that the governor of the largest state

is scrounging around trying to find a place to live?

Whoever heard of anything like that?

Uh, really, isn't it disgraceful?

Uh, I don't know about that. [ chuckles ]

[laughs] I can't get you to commit yourself.

[laughter]

[Kelley] The Kitchen Cabinet bought a large house

for the Reagans in a better part of town.

Nancy felt much more comfortable moving there,

and that's what they did.

Well, I was very happy as a kid

when they moved to a quieter neighborhood.

Nice house with a pool and, you know,

big yard and trees to climb and all the rest of that.

I thought this is-- this is a vast improvement.

[laughs]

[man] In 1969, a group of Governor Reagan's friends

bought the present mansion.

They charged the governor $15,000 a year until this year

when the legislature agreed to pick up the rent.

[man] $15,000 does sound like a lot of money in rent.

It sure does. It is a lot of money in rent.

[man] I just was wondering more if

it would've costed you more to have actually

bought the house and paid it off at that rate.

I'm not very good at arithmetic. I don't know,

but I just know we-- we, uh, we couldn't afford

to--to buy a house, no, really, shouldn't be asked to, actually.

As I say, the state is supposed to provide

living quarters for the governor.

[woman] Mrs. Reagan thinks

that both the state capital and the Governor's Mansion

should be points of pride for California residents.

And what Mrs. Reagan has started as attempts to beautify

the mansion have perhaps turned into political issues.

Can I walk in front of you?

[Ron Jr.] My mother--she was used to Hollywood kind of PR,

where, you know, for the most part,

everybody's there to kind of boost you, you know.

Now it seemed like everybody was there to tear you down.

[Nancy] I don't like viciousness and, um, uh,

it's wrong, and that's why politics has the bad name

it has and, uh, that's why it's very difficult

to get good men to go into politics.

It's very, very hard,

and the people are the losers. [sighs]

Nancy Reagan had had a bit of an introduction

to press coverage with the Governor's Mansion

that the Joan Didion piece for The Saturday Evening Post

did it for her.

It was entitled Pretty Nancy.

She talked about Nancy's frozen smile and the gaze,

"g-a-z-e" gaze, became her trademark.

Women made fun of it.

She would just be like this all the time

looking at him, and I don't think it was put on.

It's a 1950s woman trying to shore up her man.

Do we want to center these on the wall

and then-- but then work around it?

Is that--I think that's the best--Hmm?

And perhaps we have room for hanging three right here.

Don't you think it would be better

to put all of those, uh, maybe down there,

where they'd be the most visible rather than here?

[man] And having here-- and having there to themselves.

Yeah, right, and that--and that next.

-[man] Yes, I think so. -See, I'm sorry, ma'am,

but unauthorized personnel aren't allowed in here.

-[laughs] -Hi, honey.

Hi.

[Ron Jr.] My parents were somewhat old-fashioned people.

Look at these. Oops!

[exhales deeply]

[Ron Jr.] That was just as well, given that they were going

into Republican politics.

You know, Nancy, you'll see Patty later on.

Hello.

[Ron Jr.] They could stand as this symbol of the old America,

you know, the America we miss so much.

You could see it in the TV shows of the '50s--

a lot of conservatives thought the nuclear family,

the husband as breadwinner, the little woman

staying home with the apron, the happy Black servant,

this was kind of the natural order of things.

[man] Like many a housewife,

Nancy Reagan likes to shop herself when she can.

[Kelley] Nancy felt her persona

would be non-threatening to America

and non-threatening to the Republican Party,

and it worked. It worked for the Reagans.

They were scared of The Beatles, for Godsakes.

The Beatles.

The '60s were very difficult for my father.

He was unable to fathom this whole new long-haired

rock-and-roll, pot-smoking reality.

[Ronald] This fellow that was doing the talking

had a haircut like Tarzan, he walked like Jane,

and smelled like cheetah. [laughter]

rock and roll music

Hey, by the way you be sure to listen to WYBC's Viewpoint

when Jason Roberts talks with Governor Ronald Reagan.

-[Ronald] Okay, wait a second. -[man] Yeah, roll the tape.

[man] Since Sunday, the California governor

has been guest lecturer at Yale University.

[man] How do you feel?

Well, uh, a little nervous at the moment.

It's, uh, but then I was always nervous about an examination.

[indistinct conversations]

[Shearer] I first met Reagan when he came to Yale University

at the end of the first year as governor.

I probably knew more than the average Yalie

about him because I was from California.

Uh, I actually I gave the impression a lot.

He was a bit taken aback by what I what I would call

the critical reception that he got.

We asked penetrating, journalist-like questions.

He was not used to be put on the spot.

Could you tell me in what ways you've been active

for civil rights in your career?

As a sports announcer many years ago,

baseball opened its rule book with a line,

"Baseball is a game for Caucasian gentlemen."

Baseball is a game for Caucasian gentlemen.

Only whites were allowed to play baseball in the big leagues.

I editorialized constantly against this.

Was editorializing against the gentlemen's agreement

that kept Blacks from playing organized baseball.

And one man defied that rule.

And today, baseball is far better off.

[Shearer] The notion that he was an aggressive activist

who supported Jackie Robinson's right

to play baseball was, again, not true.

It's just an example of him not really wanting to see

and also not admitting the depth of the issue

of discrimination in the country.

Each time you've spoken about civil rights,

you've talked about the integration of baseball

about Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson.

It--it's become repetitious,

and it seems to me a sad concept of civil rights.

The real problems are questions of housing,

of crime in the ghetto.

It's always as if it's coming out of something that's been--

that's memorized, that if they question you

for more than five minutes, you break down.

I just--I don't believe that you really have mastered

the subjects you're talking about.

[Ronald] Well, let me ask you something.

What is the democratic machine in Chicago?

[arguing at once]

Instead of arguing the facts with us, he was sort of saying,

"You're too young to understand how the world works."

This is one of the things that you should learn.

And, Derek, you ought to learn this most of all

if you're going to pursue journalism.

[Shearer] Reagan saw himself as a patriot.

contemplative music

He wasn't self-critical.

He didn't wanna examine America in any critical way

because he accepted America as it was.

The notion that if you followed other music

or another lifestyle,

or if you disagreed with the war in Vietnam

or if you got too excited about voting rights

for Black people that you were actually challenging

his America, his unexamined America.

[Ronald] College is the world apart from the world.

But this year on the beautiful campus

of the University of California at Berkeley,

college was also this.

[chanting indistinctly]

[Ronald] This small minority of beatniks and malcontents

and filthy speech advocates

have interfered with the primary purpose

of that university,

and they've brought shame on a great university,

a university of which you and I have a right

to be very proud

and which, for many years, we have been very proud.

[crowd cheering]

[Shearer] At three in the morning

on Thursday, the 15th of May,

300 uniformed fully equipped police

occupied the park, and a fence was erected.

[man] And unless you leave,

you will be arrested for trespassing.

[Shearer] That same day, a rally was held on campus.

[man] Don't let those pigs beat the shit out of you.

Don't let yourselves get arrested on felonies.

Go down there and take the park.

[cheering]

[man] Take the park!

[Shearer] People's Park involved students

protecting a piece of land

that the university wanted to expand on.

[crowd] We want the park! We want the park!

[Scheer] The university overreacted.

On the local level, the police were coming in,

and then Reagan came in with the authorization

on the state level of the National Guard.

suspenseful music

[indistinct chanting]

[helicopter propeller whirring]

Suddenly, you have troops there with guns and bayonets.

[gunshot]

[crowd shouting indistinctly]

[Shearer] If you were watching the TV coverage,

it looked like that it was a riot.

The optics of it for Reagan were great.

It played into all the tropes of the conservative movement

about young people.

[interviewer] Did you personally agree with it?

Yeah. I'm that generation.

Bomb the bastards.

[gunfire]

[indistinct shouting]

dramatic music

[indistinct shouting]

[helicopter propeller whirring]

[Scheer] Reagan blamed everything bad that happened

on the students and the university.

On the campus, it was you who are adults.

You who are entrusted with those young people and their guidance,

have a responsibility to make it plain to them

from the very beginning

that you yourselves do not tolerate

the kind of conduct

that has led to the burning of Wheeler Hall.

[man] The overwhelming majority

of the faculty and students are against violence,

have done more to curb violence than you

and created an atmosphere--

-[Ronald] Listen. -[man] No one wants to listen.

-No one... -You are a liar.

All of it began the first time some of you who know better,

and are old enough to know better,

let young people think that they have the right

to choose the laws they would obey

as long as they were doing it in the name of social protest.

[Wiley] Reagan was able to play on the insecurity

about a world that was radically changing.

From young people on college campuses,

from the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations

as well as the civil rights movement,

Reagan was linking all of this demonstration

and protest as a grand threat.

[Ronald] It's time we recognize that this is nationwide.

This is a plot.

There is a conspiratorial side to it.

[Scheer] What should have been seen as positive expressions

of legitimate concern,

Ronald Reagan gets hacked.

He made no bones about it.

Anybody who talks about these structural problems

of race or peace and class is the enemy, a traitor.

suspenseful music

[man] The Governor and The Students,

an unedited, unrehearsed dialogue

between Governor Ronald Reagan

and California students.

groovy music

[man] Governor, I know you kind of decided

whether or not to receive the Republican

presidential, um, nomination for President.

But would you like to be President?

It's a job that--I think it starts with the people.

But I could never find myself

just saying, "Oh, I want to be President,

and I'm gonna go out and talk to people into it."

My father came from a generation where being nakedly ambitious

was not seen as a positive characteristic.

Heroes don't do that.

Heroes don't, you know, seek attention.

If you were nakedly ambitious,

you were being something less than heroic.

[Plog] Reagan was thinking of being President

from the time we first met him.

That's all he wanted.

I was with him in his Pacific Palisades home,

and we're going through some issues.

He suddenly put the books down and he said,

"Damn. Wouldn't this be fun

if we were running for the presidency?"

[Alter] In early 1968,

the guy has been governor for a year.

He goes on a nationwide speaking tour to test the waters

for the presidency.

[man] Governor, are you running for President?

I am not a candidate. I'm not running for President.

[man] People think you're a candidate.

Well, um, maybe the people think I'm a candidate

because you fellows won't take my word for it.

[man] Governor...

[crowd chattering]

[elephant blows]

[elephant trumpets]

And in '68, my grandmother was for Reagan.

Reagan was the governor from the largest state

governing as a conservative.

He really put himself forward as somebody that

conservative Republicans said,

"Someday, this is our candidate for President."

[man] This is probably his last chance at the White House

for one reason or another, chiefly age, it's 1968 or never.

[man] The nominee of this convention--

Richard M. Nixon.

[crowd cheering]

[Spencer] Reagan wasn't ready.

But my governor had stars in his eyes,

and the message was out there.

He wanted the job.

[crowd chattering]

We want Reagan! We want Reagan!

[man] And I can tell we need some more enthusiasm.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you will,

join me in a tremendous round of applause.

[cheers and applause]

It's Ronald Reagan, the fighter

Ronald Reagan, the power

Here he comes, here he comes

'76, this is ours

Oh, baby

[Cannon] Ronald Reagan left the California governorship

early in 1975.

-Hi. -[man] How are you?

By the time he was running for President in 1976,

Mrs. Reagan had acquired an awful lot

of political knowledge about national politics.

upbeat music

[reporter] Obviously, you must think

you're doing some good to be out shaking

all these hands, running around the state.

I'm doing what they asked me to do.

I go out and do questions and answers,

and it's fascinating. It really is,

'cause you find out that no matter where you are,

the same things are on people's minds,

which has been fascinating to me.

She was an actress.

Not a great actress, but an actress,

and she could play parts very well.

[Alter] She created this artifice that in some ways

was almost as powerful as her husband's façade

and hers was of the adoring, demure wife.

But she also knew how to charm people.

[Nancy] It's, uh... [ laughs ]

Have you ever just said,

"No. That's not the way we're gonna do it"?

-No. -[laughs]

Well, I'll tell you, that's-- that's an ideal wife.

[man] Mrs. Reagan...

[Lopez] When Ronald Reagan runs again in '76,

he also learned from his experience in California,

and he runs a very aggressive dog whistle campaign.

Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about issues,

issues which I think are involved

or should be involved in this primary election season.

[Wiley] Reagan's ideology was that

government programs are just wasting

our hard-earned money.

He pulls the story of a woman in Chicago.

[Ronald] She has 50 Social Security numbers

and 50 addresses in Chicago alone.

Her tax-free cash income

has been running a $150,000 a year.

[Wiley] Reagan's welfare queen and her Cadillac

became a poster child for a lie.

The lie is this is what people on welfare are,

that these are people who don't need the program

and that it was people of color

who were getting unfair handouts.

Washington doesn't even know how many people are on welfare,

how many cheaters are getting more than one check.

The surface story is Blacks are lazy.

They're cheaters. They're a drain on society.

And by implication,

a complimentary story about whites--

hard-working, responsible, innocent,

law-abiding taxpayers who contribute.

Many politicians like Reagan use welfare as a--

as a term to cover up their racism.

That is they never deal with the fact

that they have three whites on welfare for every one Black.

[Scheer] Reagan was demonizing vulnerable people.

And meanwhile, the people ripping you off

are big corporations getting tax breaks,

and so it's a very convenient narrative.

[reporter] Significant numbers of Democratic

and independent voters like what he's been saying,

that some of his detractors claim that at least

some of what he's been saying is a little short on accuracy.

It costs three $3 in overhead to deliver one $1

to a needy person in this country.

[man] Reagan is wrong.

It doesn't cost $3 to deliver a dollar of welfare,

but 12 cents.

[Wiley] The majority of people who are on welfare are white.

And yet welfare exists in our political consciousness

as only benefitting people of color.

That is how blind we have become

to how manipulated we are by racial politics

that serve to undermine equality.

[man] Ronald Reagan almost has as many delegates

committed to him

as are committed to President Ford.

[woman] Do you think you'll be the Republican nominee in '76?

[Ronald] I don't know. I'm gonna try.

tense music

Good morning from Kansas City, Missouri,

the site of the 31st Republican National Convention.

The choice facing the people in this country

is between that Democratic platform,

which is for more government, more spending,

more deficits as against the platform

that has said, "Let us reverse that

and get back the freedom

and state's rights and local rules."

[Baker] In 1976, Reagan was a force

to be reckoned with.

He almost knocked off an incumbent Jerry Ford

for his party's nomination.

[man] They're not really fighting over the old fissure

of, "Are we going left or are going right?"

This party's made up its mind. It's going right.

It's going right, but how far right?

[man] The nominee of this convention is Gerald R. Ford.

[crowd cheering]

[man] The major Reagan threat to the Ford campaign here

has been decisively defeated.

[man] There had been a request to hear

from Governor Reagan,

invite him to address the convention.

[cheers and applause]

[Norquist] In the speech Reagan gave

supposedly endorsing Ford

was a speech for electing Reagan,

and he made it clear that he had a vision.

We've got to quit talking to each other

and about each other and go out and communicate to the world

that we may be fewer in numbers than we've ever been,

but we carry the message they're waiting for.

[Norquist] Reagan was making the case

for a modern conservative Republican Party

that had a serious vision of where it wanted to go.

What a great general said a few years ago is true.

There is no substitute for victory.

Mr. President.

[crowd cheering]

Thank you.

[Spencer] He made the best speech of his life.

It just showed me how badly he wanted it.

After that, Reagan owned the heart of the party.

[man] This was supposed to have been President Ford's night,

and then as he swept off the stage,

the whole auditorium just rose.

I've never seen anything like that.

[man] Saying in effect, Roger, this is what you--

That maybe we picked the wrong man. I don't--

This is what you might have had.

Exactly.

[man] Unless Ronald Reagan

comes to the end of the long trail,

65 is not likely to be a candidate

for public office again.

[Ron Jr.] After the '76 campaign,

I noticed my father mellowing a bit.

Part of that was the fact that he had lost...

[horse nickers]

...but survived.

Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah!

[Rollins] Reagan told me one time,

"I probably wouldn't have run again

if it wasn't for Mrs. Reagan."

She thought that he had to run,

and he was sort of, "Okay, I took my shot at it.

Gonna go to the ranch and live happily ever after."

hopeful music

She kept persuading him

that he was the man that could change the country.

[man] Ronald Reagan hasn't been heard from much

since he lost the Republican nomination

to Gerald Ford in Kansas City.

While his fellow Republicans have been trying to figure out

what to do about the party, the governors,

the state chairmen, the national committee,

Reagan has been more or less quietly biding his time.

[Ronald] Well, there's nothing like

being in the saddle all day.

Governor Reagan, would you have beaten Jimmy Carter?

I said during the primaries that I thought I could,

and I still believe that I could have.

[man] Where Ford failed Reagan would have won, how?

How would you have put it together?

Well, I think I would have broken into the solid South,

which went for Carter as an-- as a native son.

But what really made the difference,

if you will agree, is the Black vote.

Yeah.

Apparently Black Americans find almost nothing

in the Republican Party to attract.

You're anti-people. Bob Dole says

you have the image of being anti-people.

Ah, we have the image,

yes, but... and I don't deny that.

We have been the victims of a false image.

The Republican Party has just done the lousiest job

of merchandising of what it has to offer.

To me, it was realistic that he could have been

a nominee in '76.

Do I think he could beat Jimmy Carter? No.

Reagan's base was the South,

and Jimmy was a hometown Southern boy.

But four years later, when Reagan ran again,

they didn't like their boy. [laughs]

[crowd cheering]

[Alter] Reagan knew he had to win the South in 1980.

To do that, he had to send some messages

that he was on the side

of racist conservative voters there.

He definitely went for

what they called the cracker vote.

[Shearer] Since the end of the '60s,

the Republican Party consciously went after

white voters in the South

by making racial appeals to voters.

[Lopez] This was called the Southern strategy.

And when Ronald Reagan runs for president,

he opts to do the same thing

by going to the deep South and invoke state's rights.

That is a deeply considered strategy.

[Johnson] He is saying I can separate the North and the South

by talking about racial issues that will move white Democrats

to the Republican Party,

I can take the same bigotry, I can dress it up

and I can make it something palatable

to people in the suburbs.

You've seen in his campaign the stirrings of hate

and the rebirth of code words like "state's rights"

in a speech in Mississippi.

[Lopez] When Jimmy Carter challenged

Reagan's use of race in the campaign,

the Reagan campaign responded by saying

Carter was being mean to Reagan

as if he was saying Reagan is prejudiced.

I am deeply, deeply offended by the attempts of Mr. Carter

to paint my husband as a man he is not.

That's a cruel thing to do.

[reporter] The president had some rather unkind words for you

last night, Governor. He said if you win the election,

you'll have a divisive effect on the country,

and he suggested that you would separate North from South,

rural from urban, Jew from Christian,

and Black from white.

Well, I think he's a badly misinformed

and prejudiced man.

[man] Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

The whole fiction of Reagan was that "I am not marginalizing

or dividing the country.

I am finding a more honest, effective way

of helping people."

He packaged this fiction,

and then the only thing that gets in the way

are these bad actors,

welfare mothers, and people of color

and communists and homosexuals.

And people believed it.

[reporter] The Reagan motorcade left Manhattan

for the South Bronx, a high crime, low hope area.

President Carter visited the same site three years ago.

Reagan came, he said, to remind voters

the administration had broken its promise to rebuild the area.

[woman] Go take him now! You his wife!

Señora, you're his wife! Help us, okay?

Help us!

[crowd shouting indistinctly]

I'd just like to point out one thing.

I didn't come down here to make a promise,

I came down here because somebody else made a promise.

[crowd chanting]

[Shearer] Reagan didn't understand

African American life.

He didn't really know Black people.

And that didn't bother him,

but he knew what he was doing when he campaigned.

Listen, wait a minute.

[woman] Let the man speak! -Cállate la boca!

Let him speak!

Right now...

[indistinct shouting]

Right now in...right now in Congress, there's some--

-I'm trying to tell you! -[woman] But can you?

I am trying to tell you that I know now

there is no program or promise that a president can make...

[man] Thank you.

...that the federal government can come in and--

-...wave a wand and do this.

[Scheer] His stock and trade

was to say, "I really care about you.

The people who are spending all that government money

don't really care.

But he didn't really have a program,

didn't have an answer.

When he got before a crowd like that,

which was almost never happened,

he was exposed instantly.

[crowd shouting]

intriguing music

The question of whether my father

was, in fact, racist in some way

is a troubling one for me and, uh,

and one that I don't really know how to answer.

I never heard him at home

in private ever saying racist things.

He certainly didn't use the "N" word.

Nobody talked like that in our house.

I do not think Ronald Reagan thought

he was a racist.

When he visited us at Yale, my friend asked Governor Reagan,

"Are there any other Black people you know

other than Jackie Robinson?"

And that's where Governor Reagan said,

"Sammy Davis Jr. is one of my best friends.

So that means I'm not a racist."

[Wiley] Ronald Reagan made explicitly racist statements.

We know that from tapes that were only recently released.

[woman] President Richard Nixon recorded himself talking

to then-California Governor Ronald Reagan

in October 1971, the day after the United Nations

voted to recognize The People's Republic of China.

Reagan had phoned Nixon at the White House

to vent his frustration at African delegates

who celebrated the vote.

[Lopez] That sort of quote is only part

of the larger indictment against Ronald Reagan.

He should also be criticized for being a national leader

who made the decision to strategically promote

racial conflict and hatred as a strategy

to rile up voters and to win elections.

[indistinct chatter]

[Shearer] Voters got the message

that this was not gonna be a president

that enforced civil rights or voting rights.

And you could feel good about voting for him

because he'd supported Jackie Robinson

playing baseball.

Let us pledge to each other, with this great lady looking on,

that we can, and so help us, God,

we will make America great again.

-[crowd cheering] -Thank you very much.

[cheering]

[Lopez] Reagan's reputation as a dog whistler

has not had a sufficiently negative impact on his legacy.

Dog whistling is all about plausible deniability

that allowed Reagan to protect himself

and that has allowed the Republican Party

for the last four decades

to deny that that's who Ronald Reagan was,

to turn him into a hero,

to insist that he really did care

about the average American working family.

But when people stand back,

they see that, in fact, Reagan was a divisive figure,

someone willing to do what he knew was wrong

to divide Americans as a way to win power.

[Wiley] Reagan's genius as a politician

was that he wrapped his racism in a façade of fatherly love.

[crowd cheering]

And it was something that Black people in this country

understood was a façade,

and we understood it by his words and his deeds.

[Ronald] For those without job opportunities,

we'll stimulate new opportunities

particularly in the inner cities where they live.

For those who've abandoned hope,

we'll restore hope,

and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade

to make America great again.

[jet roaring]

We have here what, I think, reasonably

could be called a landslide

or certainly something approaching a landslide.

Where did it come from?

Nobody anticipated it.

No polls predicted it. No one saw it coming.

How did that happen?

[man] Ronald Reagan-- look at what he has done.

These are the states in blue that he has won.

Well, who leads the social counter revolution

that Teddy Kennedy-- -[man] Lawyers.

I think it'll be somebody whose name

is not a household word tonight.

[man] Try Senator Biden from Delaware for openers.

Very impressive young guy,

in his second term, revisionist Democrat.

[coughs] Wow, okay.

[laughter]

All right. All right.