Ronald Reagan People to Watch

BBC Four Collections -

specially chosen programmes from the BBC Archive.

For this Collection,

Sir Michael Parkinson

has selected BBC interviews

with influential figures

of the 20th century.

More programmes on this theme

and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

'Ronald Reagan talked to me at Los Angeles Airport,

'between campaign flights.

'I asked him what the advantages were for a candidate,

'the favourite for Governor, of having been an actor.'

Well, I think there are certain technical things

with regard to the personal appearances,

the having to appear before television cameras.

Things that might be strange to someone else,

these are an advantage.

I think they only help to offset the disadvantage some people still have

with regard to people of the theatrical profession,

a sort of a prejudice.

Why do you think they're prejudiced?

What is it they're prejudiced against?

I think there's been a long-time prejudice,

dating clear back to the days of the strolling player.

I think it probably, in our own country,

it's a heritage from an era when the actor didn't have a home,

when the actor that you saw travelled

and he wasn't a part of your community, you never got to know him.

Now, of course, with motion pictures and television,

actors, like other people, have settled down in one community.

They mow the lawn and send the kids to school and live like anyone else.

One of the virtues must be that it's easy to learn lines.

But actors don't normally write their parts.

Do you write your own speeches?

Yes. No-one's ever written a speech for me, up till now.

I, er... I've...

As a matter of fact, up until this campaign,

I've always done my own research,

but that's become a job in which I've had to have help.

How does the glamour of politics

compare with the glamour of the screen?

Oh, I'd never thought about it much in those terms.

There's much of the same excitement, the contact with people.

I think anyone in our profession likes people,

enjoys meeting them, enjoys appearing before them.

That's...probably part of why you chose this profession.

How does the vanity of politicians compare with the vanity of actors?

Well, you know, you find out something.

This has been highly overrated with regard to actors.

I've always found that there's much more temperament on the set

among people of the associated branches

than there is with the actor.

With the actor, it's never temperament, it's just indigestion.

And the same is true in politics.

I've discovered that there is a great deal of temperament

to be met with...

oh, among the troops and with the people

and the person who mustn't be offended, and that sort of thing.

- Much the same? - Yes.

People remark on the brilliance of your public relations firm.

Do they influence your policy a great deal?

As a matter of fact, they've never tried.

I know this was a subject of a great deal of rumour and gossip,

that they were the kind of people that reshaped an individual.

As they explained it to me one day,

they said, "If we could reshape an individual,

"we wouldn't represent him, because he couldn't win."

I think they're right.

Anyone that could be that malleable

certainly could not appeal to the people.

But they've never suggested one thing

that I should or shouldn't say or believe or think.

Talking about reshaping an individual,

your own political attitudes,

some commentators here have...

remarked on, and I quote, your "180-degree move in political orbit

"from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican."

Would you agree you've moved?

Well, I don't think I've moved quite that far,

as people have suggested.

Perhaps some other people have been doing some moving.

Now, I have on my desk at home an interview that I did in 1947.

I was still a Democrat.

And, in answer to one question in that interview,

I stated as my belief that whether it came from the right,

the left or the middle, from management, labour or government,

anything that imposed unfairly on the individual

was tyranny and must be opposed.

Now, I believed that then and I believe it now.

I think what a lot of people have failed to realise in our own country

is that the party now in power,

the leadership of that party, has gone far astray

from what used to be the principles of the Democratic Party.

And perhaps there's been as much of the party leaving me

as there has been of me leaving the party.

In the 1940s, you campaigned against Richard Nixon.

You were a liberal, associated with the Screen Guild and so on.

This is a substantial move, isn't it?

Oh, yes, there've been some changes.

I can remember going through a period in which I subscribed to beliefs

that perhaps the government

was better able to handle things like public utilities.

I don't subscribe to that belief any more.

For one thing, during the war,

I had a chance as an adjutant of an air base,

with both civilian employees and military under me,

to watch the government function and I've come to the conclusion

that, outside of its legitimate functions -

its legitimate functions -

the government doesn't do anything as well or as economically

as the private sector of the economy.

But...many of us came back from military service

to our own industry

and, in that immediate period,

we hadn't realised the efforts at infiltration

that had been accomplished in our industry

in an attempt to take it over and subvert our screens

to the dissemination of Communist propaganda.

I know I was very reluctant to believe this,

when some people who'd been around tried to tell me.

I just couldn't believe it.

We had to find out for ourselves

and find out the hard way that it was true.

This meant that, in that same period,

one of the tactics of these people

was the formation of Communist front organisations.

I found myself invited to be on the board of one of those,

attended one board meeting, before I realised what was going on.

Now, I'm happy to say, that I joined a little group on that same board

who had the same idea and we blew the organisation out of the water.

Two or three years ago, you were supporting Senator Goldwater

in his campaign for presidency.

Are your views now much as they were then?

Yes.

Would it be fair to call you a Goldwater-ite,

as your opponents are calling you?

Well, no, because they're still trying to run the same campaign

as two years ago.

I suggested we ought to come up and engage in the 1966 campaign.

You know, I'm a common-sense Republican, I was then.

I not only supported Mr Goldwater and the entire ticket in '64,

but, two years before that,

I supported Mr Nixon running for Governor in California.

And, two years before that,

in 1960, I supported Richard Nixon in his campaign for the presidency.

In other words, since I've been a Republican,

I've supported the ticket from top to bottom.

Do you plan to disavow the John Birch Society?

No, I've expressed my disagreement

with many things that they represent or stand for.

But this is an organisation that claims it does not endorse

politicians or candidates or parties.

It claims its membership is roughly half and half,

with regard to Democrat and Republican membership.

And I just refuse to accept that they are a Republican problem,

any more than the other side should accept that.

I'm going to campaign for individuals

and I assume that anyone who chooses to go along with me

has bought my philosophy, I haven't bought his.

If you win in November,

do you think your victory will be taken as a victory for the Right,

some of which is pretty wild here?

Oh, I think that there'll be a lot of people...

This is one thing where there is a comparison

with getting in show business.

You discovered you were fairly successful

and you based your discovery

on the number of people who were claiming they'd discovered you.

I imagine the same thing happens in politics.

When you win, everybody's going to claim this is a victory

for whatever they happen to believe.

I just hope there'll be a lot of people feeling that way.

What would you say was the basis of your political philosophy?

What writers or political figures have you admired and learned from?

Oh...

That's a hard one. I'm a voracious reader,

a student of things of that kind.

I've been greatly impressed by many of the men,

the founding fathers of our country, Jefferson and so forth.

But, I tell you, you have one that has influenced me as much as anyone.

Who's that?

I think that Winston Churchill was one of the great men

of, um, of our time and our generation.

I don't think the world will see his like for many years to come.

Is there anyone in the current American political scene

who you think is particularly admirable?

Oh, a number of people.

I think most people are pretty good.

I've always believed that you find them good

unless they prove otherwise.

But, um...

..I think that, at the moment,

we are not particularly blessed with great leaders of that stature,

of a Churchill type.

I think this comes and goes with history

and history's proven that there are waves of time

in which you don't have those giants. And he was a giant.

You wouldn't call Mr Johnson a great president?

Not in my opinion.

I am in great disagreement with much of what he stands for.

If we can look at some of those areas of disagreement,

one of the themes of your speeches has been the misuse of welfare.

Who's been misusing the welfare?

Well, I think the government and the whole approach to welfare

has mislaid, or misdirected,

the old philosophy of the carrot and the stick.

You dangle a carrot in order to induce someone to do something

and you have the stick waiting, if it's necessary, from behind.

I think the government is trying to do everything with the carrot

and has removed the stick.

We found that here in California, in this last harvest season,

when the government denied us the right to import supplemental labour,

from Mexico, for example, to harvest our crops.

And yet we had an unemployment in California

40% higher than the national average.

And you couldn't get those unemployed to take those jobs,

and good-paying jobs, in our farm economy.

One of the reasons was because the welfare programme

has made it so easy to remain on welfare,

even when there is a job available,

that the able-bodied prefer to sit in the shade

rather than go out in the sun and work.

And, er...this is a sin against the people on welfare,

because our interest in their welfare

should be more than just a belly full of bacon and beans.

Our interest should be in the spirit of the human being.

And you can only put a man on the dole so long,

until you break down the very moral fibre of that man.

And this is what I fear we are doing.

There was an ancient Hebrew philosopher in the 11th century -

Maimonides - who said there were eight steps in helping the poor.

He said the worst of these was the handout,

and the highest was to teach him to help himself.

Do you think Negroes misuse welfare?

Well, it isn't a case of whether they misuse it.

I think they probably have a higher percentage of people on it

because they have been, er...

They have a higher proportion of people in a lower income bracket,

in the lower-trained skills.

They are the first ones who have suffered as job skills went up

and more was required.

I think they require more attention today with regard to job training

to fit them for these more skilled type of jobs.

Mr Reagan, what's your solution to the gathering Negro crisis

here in Los Angeles, in Watts, and in Oakland, in San Francisco?

Well, there are a couple of approaches.

We have several very fine programmes from the private sector

that are going to work - one of them involving

some 260 industrialists in the Los Angeles area -

have put, since last September 1st, more than 5,000 people to work.

One of their great problems there is economic.

They have 25,000 unemployed in that one neighbourhood.

And these businessmen

have recognised that it is industry's responsibility

to provide jobs, and they're doing this.

There are other programmes of this kind that could be encouraged.

There's altogether too much competition by government.

The government almost takes the attitude

that these people are interlopers for trying to do something on their own,

without waiting for government to do it.

- Private industry, you mean? - Yes.

Government, instead, should be co-operating and encouraging them,

helping them, indeed, offering tax incentives,

to increase their ability to go in and help.

I think at the same time, government has a great responsibility, however,

with remedial education,

with training for people who have recently immigrated here

from some of the rural areas,

particularly at the Deep South, who are illiterate

and who thus are unemployable.

All of these things must be done. At the same time,

I think government has been absolutely too tolerant

with some of the self-appointed leaders

who have incited their people to riot

and to law-breaking.

And I think it's time that someone tells them they're no longer leaders

and seeks leadership among the fine, responsible Negro citizens

in that community, and they are, actually, about 98% of the community.

In Watts, one hears a great deal - and in Oakland -

about police brutality.

There's a gathering feeling against white people.

Can you do anything about this?

Of course that feeling is there.

But I think we can do something about it.

But I think it's a two-way street,

with people talking to each other instead of about each other.

And I don't believe the police brutality stories at all.

I think right here in Los Angeles

is one of the finest law enforcement bodies in the world.

And they have worked long and hard on this particular subject.

I think that this cry has been brought up

and has been made a kind of a belief by people who have an axe to grind,

who are in there not to settle the problem, but to create a problem.

Are you against the war on poverty?

Well, at the moment, I happen to think poverty's losing.

The war on poverty, in our country,

has built up, probably, the greatest bureaucracy,

out of all proportion to its accomplishments,

and the poor are waiting for something

to come out the end of the pipeline and nothing has come out.

There are more high-salaried executives,

government executives,

in proportionate numbers, in that programme

than in any other agency of our government, including defence.

And by a fantastic ratio.

And it would seem when you have 220 people being helped in one camp,

one of the job-training camps, but you have 300 employees serving them,

there's something wrong.

Are you against Medicare?

Yes, I am.

I'm not against medical care for those who can't afford it

and I, for a long time,

have advocated some kind of medical insurance.

In our country, I think you should know,

we have roughly 150 million people

who are, out of the 190 million,

who today are protected by

some kind of private medical or health insurance.

This has been spreading at a rate of about four million a year.

But...

I've favoured, for those people who can't afford

either that insurance or the doctor's bills,

that public funds should be used

to pay their premiums in insurance policy,

so that they, too, had the free choice of a doctor and a hospital

with a paid-up medical insurance programme.

I am opposed to Medicare because it is compulsory

in that it forces people who don't need it.

I, for example, have medical protection by way of my union,

the Screen Actors Guild, for me and my entire family.

But the government comes along

and tells me I am forced to be in this other programme also

and I have no need for that other programme.

You have consistently attacked the Great Society,

President Johnson's concept of the Great Society,

which to most people means more education, more housing,

war on poverty, and so on.

What's the nature of your attack?

Well, the simple criticism is one of method.

I have no quarrel with the goals.

This, I think, is one of the fallacies in our modern dialogue,

that those people who favour the welfare state

will only meet you in argument

on the basis that you are opposed to the humanitarian goals.

They'll never meet you on the issue

that you share their same humanitarian concern,

you just feel there's a better way to accomplish it.

I suggest that the government, for more than 30 years in America,

has had, for example, a great opportunity

at solving the problem of unemployment,

one of our most nagging problems.

They've had unlicensed sway with regard to planning

and they've been planning and the more the plans fail,

the more they plan.

Now, in the meantime, private industry in America

has been taking care of about 95 to 96% of the employables

and providing jobs very successfully.

And I think it's time that perhaps government,

instead of continuing more planning,

say that after 30 years of failure,

maybe they ought to get out of the way

and see if private enterprise couldn't add that last few per cent

and handle that job too.

You appear to be appealing to an older kind of American,

laissez faire.

But isn't that difficult when you have a very complicated,

expanding, modern sort of state like your own in California?

Well, you see, I happen to think that what you've just voiced is a fallacy.

This theory that as society grows more complex and, as we grow bigger,

more complicated, that we have to turn more and more

to a central government for the answers to the problems

doesn't hold water.

You can't have a government that can gather together enough people,

brilliant enough, to make all the multitudinous decisions

that have to be made every day

in the marketplace and in our community living.

The only way you can make this system work,

without having everyone marching in lockstep

is to turn government back as nearly as possible to the local levels,

to the local communities.

Big business has found this out in our own country.

As our great corporations grew, and have grown to their present stature,

they discovered they could no longer run it

from one little central office up on top

and they've begun to decentralise. Government must do the same thing.

You've attacked some students at the University of California,

Berkeley particularly,

for their radicalism, for their sexual behaviour,

and many students think this is an attack on free speech.

What's your response to that?

Well, you have me in a little hard position to explain this,

because some of the things that I know have taken place -

I have documentary evidence -

are in such violation of the normal ethical and moral codes

that I couldn't begin to discuss it here in a television programme.

But let me say that under the sponsorship of this one committee,

and, unfortunately, sanctioned by the university,

these student activities took place.

And they were just that shocking.

They were beyond anything that your viewers could even imagine

taking place on a college campus at student functions.

And I think the time has come for an open enquiry

to find how this could take place.

Now, remember, we're talking about a very small minority.

The bulk of the 27,000 students there are fine, responsible young people

who are there for an education.

But the situation has gotten out of hand.

It's the result of a vacillating administration that has appeased

and the fruit of appeasement is always the same.

It finally winds up, when your back is to the wall,

and you have to do something about it.

At the commencement ceremony,

many students seemed very concerned that there would be an assault

on their liberty there, at Berkeley. Is there a danger of this?

Well...

I've always figured that liberty and freedom of speech

is a two-way street.

And, um...

I figure that while I have no right

to say that someone can't use, for example, vulgar language,

I do have a right, if he's at the next table

and saying it loud enough for my wife and children to hear,

I have a right to ask him to lower his voice.

Now, the Constitution prescribes that he has a right to speak.

But the Constitution doesn't prescribe that I have to listen.

Do you see yourself conducting

some kind of puritan, moral crusade in California?

Well, not a puritan moral campaign,

but I think we have something of a moral crusade that's required here.

We have a crime problem in California

in which 9% of the people of our nation live in this state,

but 17% of the crime of our nation is committed in this state.

When 33... When the increase in arrests

for youngsters under age 18 for narcotics crimes last year

was up 33.5%, I think it's time to do something about it.

Whose fault do you say this is? Is it the Democrats' fault?

Yes, it is.

This state administration, under a theory of pre-emption,

has taken from our local communities and our cities

the right to legislate and have ordinances in these various fields.

And this has restricted the ability of our police

to make arrests they once could make.

And all that is needed is for this state administration

to give back to our local cities and communities

the right to pass ordinances to protect society.

If we could look outside America at foreign policy, Mr Reagan,

are you interested in foreign policy?

Oh, I'm interested, yes.

But you realise this isn't a part of a gubernatorial campaign.

The Governor is not going to have any foreign policy.

- But you have views about Vietnam? - Yes, I do.

Do you support the President's policy?

The only place where I differ with the President on Vietnam is that

I don't think we're doing enough to win.

I think once you commit young men to fight and die for their country,

you have a moral obligation

to turn the full resources of the nation loose behind them

to win a victory just as quickly as possible.

This means stepping up bombing in North Vietnam?

Yes. I think it's pretty ridiculous to send multimillion dollar bombers

out to bomb jungle paths, trying to catch individuals

who are carrying packs on their backs down the line

when you could mine or bomb the harbour of Haiphong

and stop that material when it's coming in in shiploads.

What if this were to lead to war with China?

Well, I've always figured that if it's going to lead to war with China,

er...

When China is ready to have such a war, they'll have it,

and we won't have to give them an excuse.

And there was a very famous line spoken once in a conflict.

I, perhaps, am very tactless to refer to it here, on this programme,

but I remember there were some farmers

at a place called Concord Bridge

and one of them spoke a line that I think touches on this very well.

He said, "If they mean to have a war, it might as well start here."

You wouldn't, I take it, be in favour of treating with the Viet Cong?

No.

No, I think now there's only... You don't end wars, you win them.

What if the Chinese war were to be a nuclear war?

Would that appal you as a possibility?

Well, yes, I think it would appal anyone.

I don't foresee that as a possibility,

except I think from the standpoint that we must recognise now

that Red China is hastily making itself a nuclear power

and I don't think they'll have the same conscience

with regard to the bomb that the rest of the world has.

Would you regard yourself as being passionately anti-Communist,

in the sense that you think America ought to try and protect any society

that looked like having a Communist government?

No, I'm a realistic anti-Communist.

And I think I had some experience with Communists

in our own industry,

when they attempted to take it over some years ago.

It isn't just a case of going out, borrowing trouble.

Any country that wants to have a Communist government,

I assume should be permitted to have it.

But I think we have to recognise this is a global conflict

and the enemy is there and we are the target of that enemy.

And I think we have to do what is necessary

to oppose their aggression,

to prove to them that aggression does not pay.

If they succeed in aggression and it pays off in South Vietnam,

then the next step will be some place closer,

or perhaps even more difficult

and they will try to make aggression pay again.

And some place along the line, well, you...

The same gentleman from your nation that I referred to,

Winston Churchill, gave the greatest sermon on appeasement

back at a time when there were Englishmen

who considered appeasing Hitler.

And Winston Churchill said,

"If you will not fight for the right when you can, without bloodshed,

"if you will not fight

"when your victory will be sure and not too costly,

"you may come to the moment when you will have to fight

"with all the odds against you

"and only a precarious chance of survival."

And then he added this line...

"There may be a worse case.

"You may have to fight when there's no chance of victory,

"because it's better to perish than to live as slaves."

Mr Reagan, one of the criticisms by your opponents of your position

is that you have no experience and yet you're running

for one of the most important political offices

in the United States. What's your answer to that?

Well, I think that experience comes in many ways.

It doesn't necessarily follow that it must come from just holding office.

There were two teachers applying for jobs here in our educational system.

One had 25 years' experience and the other only had one.

And they hired the one with one.

And the other one protested and claimed this 25 years' experience

and the superintendent said,

"No, you've had one year's experience, repeated 25 times."

Now, I have had administrative and executive experience

and quite a considerable amount, for more than 20 years,

six times president and the rest of the time on the board

or an officer of a union, a national union, the Screen Actors Guild.

We negotiated the basic contracts,

we dealt with the problems that affected

the livelihood of our 15,000 members.

And there were other jobs that went along with that in the industry.

So, I'm not basing my running for Governor

on anything that I did on the screen, in that line of work.

I'm basing it on this other part of my life

that did deal with administrative problems.

Do you think you'll win?

Yes.

Would you like to be President of the United States?

Oh, for heaven's sakes!

That's a question that,

the minute you run for any office in the United States,

you must first stand up and say,

"I don't want to be President of the United States!"

I just want to be Governor of California.

What if people wanted you to be President?

Would the prospect appal you?

Yes, I think it would appal anyone.

I think it is... I think it is an awesome responsibility.