Nancy’s feast, and Reagan’s City on a Hill

Here’s a lovely column written by the late Balint Vazsonyi in 2000 about a collection of Ronald Reagan’s letters to his wife Nancy, and how some liberal media stalwarts, no friends of Reagan, unexpectedly reacted as they were reading the letters aloud on a tv program.

Reagan has that effect on people. The other day a friend and I were discussing Reagan’s final speech from the Oval Office, on January 11, 1989, in which he talked about the crisis in American national identity and the need to restore knowledge and love of American history. I began to read a passage of it out loud, where Reagan explained what the phrase “City on a Hill” meant to him, and I choked up. And I remained moved, even though Reagan proceeded to spoil it by saying, “and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.” In Reagan’s mind, of course, those immigrants were not just anyone who wanted to come; they were people who loved America and were becoming fully a part of it. At the same time, his words, understood literally, were a mandate for open borders, and have been invoked as such by the open-borders “conservatives” who would destroy this country. Yet Reagan’s own love of America was so pure and so beautifully expressed that he moved you even when he was saying things that had disastrous implications.

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The following e-mail was forwarded to me.

A gorgeous column, and as good an explanation I have seen as to why so many hated a man whom it seemed impossible to dislike, whether one agreed with his beliefs or not. I have a similar story to share—by coincidence, also involving a group of Norwegians.

In 2004 I went to Norway to attend the 60th birthday celebration of one of my dearest friends. I stayed a week, and the second weekend was in the company of seven or eight Norwegian friends of my friend. One afternoon his friends noticed that I was reading In His Own Words, the collection of Reagan’s radio addresses. They expressed surprise, and wondered if Reagan had been literate enough to write anything. I opened the book to the letter Reagan wrote to Americans in 1993, announcing the “sunset of his life” and bidding us farewell. When I finished, several listeners were dabbing tears from their eyes. I heard no more cracks about Reagan. By now they probably have forgotten, but at least for a moment that falsity of their beliefs was evident, even to them.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 28, 2006 02:16 PM | Send