Reagan in His Own Voice » (Abridged, 5 CDs, 6 hrs.)

Kiron K. Skinner is an assistant professor of history and political science at Carnegie Mellon University, and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Hoover Institution. Her articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and National Interest. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Reagan In His Own Voice features Ronald Reagan's radio addresses from the late 1970s. Edited by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson, they are introduced by George Shultz and feature additional introductions by Nancy Reagan, Richard V. Allen, Judge William Clark, Michael Deaver, Peter Hannaford, Edwin Meese III and Harry O'Connor.

From 1975 to 1979 Ronald Reagan gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, the great majority of which he wrote himself. This program represents the opening of a major archive of pre-presidential material from the Reagan Library and the Hoover Institution Archives. These addresses transform our image of Ronald Reagan, and enhance and revise our understanding of the late 1970s — a time when Reagan held no political office, but was nonetheless mapping out a strategy to transform the economy, end the cold war, and create a vision of America that would propel him to the presidency.

These radio programs demonstrate that Reagan had carefully considered nearly every issue he would face as president. Reagan's radio broadcasts will change his reputation even among his closest allies and friends. Here, in his own voice, Reagan the thinker is finally fully revealed.

Library Journal

Between his campaign against President Gerald Ford in 1975-76 and his entry into the race that resulted in his election victory over President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Reagan delivered more than 1000 radio broadcasts, running about three minutes apiece, writing nearly all of them himself. A major archive of these recordings and other prepresidential material has now been opened by the Reagan Library and the Hoover Institution Archives, and the impact is breathtaking. Anyone who listens to these, except for the most dazed mind captivated by one anti-Reagan ide fixe or another, will find it virtually impossible to dismiss Reagan as a shallow thinker, captive of handlers and inattentive to detail. Instead, we encounter a man who is master of a wide array of public policy issues, his facts researched and at hand, his overall philosophy shaping his interpretation of those facts, and his orderly mind arranging them into powerful and lucid verbal deliveries to a vast audience. Most of the themes of his presidency are represented here: the Soviet Union, the failures of big government, and foreign policy particulars, as well as more personal commentary on marriage, religion, holidays, war, and death. Along the way we hear the voices of the editors, and also Nancy Reagan, Michael Deaver, Richard V. Allen, and various other Reagan-era notables as they introduce particular segments. On these tapes we find the Great Communicator in full flower at a crucial moment in his political history, and any audio library representative of the recent historical past should view these as a necessary purchase. Don Wismer, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.