president reagan speech writers

president reagan speech writers

The Impact of President Reagan’s Speechwriters on American Politics

1. Introduction to President Reagan’s Administration and Speechwriting Team

Regardless of whatever one may have thought of President Reagan’s policy decisions, he had assembled, for the time, the “creme de la creme” of legal, economic, and business staff to assist him in the Oval Office. Although the national news media then, and even now, have been generally limited in their coverage of political speechwriters, these staffers, numbering 87, many of whom were in their first jobs post-graduate school, not only can offer yet a new glimpse of President Reagan and Vice President Bush, and their top legislative and economic advisers, but also provide yet one more viewpoint about the inner workings of the only think-tank run from the Oval Office.

Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 40th president of the United States of America from 1981 to 1989. A Republican, he championed a strong conservative political philosophy that included supporting both individual and entrepreneurial freedom, opposing big government, and reviving a strong, moral society. Reagan’s speechwriting staff faced a significant challenge during the eight-year Reagan administration: turning the unlikely candidate’s beliefs into speeches that others would understand, believe in, and act upon. Unlike any previous president, Reagan had written and given talks on NBC news and his own radio show. Not only was much of this material already in the public domain, but the colorful anecdotes, humor, and down-home wisdom that had served him so well on the lecture circuit were often not taken seriously by pundits and peers in the political milieu. Nonetheless, it quickly becomes apparent that President Reagan relied not only upon this original material, but also heavily on white papers and other well-reasoned arguments furnished to him by Ivy-League-degreed, conservative think-tank experts.

2. Key Speeches and Rhetorical Strategies

For President Ronald Reagan and his White House Heralds, the only thing to fear was a failure to communicate. Reagan chose a largely indirect approach in crafting his speeches, preferring to instruct his speechwriters in tone and themes rather than detail. His distanced management style may have been pivotal, for it allowed him to maintain a certain deniability in relation to later controversies. This was particularly important when it came to policy initiatives which relied on rationale that was a stark change of tone from his reputation as a tax-cutter and fiscal conservative. These differing rationales can also be tactically detected from the speeches, which seek to effect consensus rather than engage in dialogue about the rationale’s validity. The point of this chapter then is not to analyze the philosophical spillage of Reagan Administration ideas onto the academia. He puts the former first, arguing that in the autobiographies, “most thinkers and intellectuals will find ideas with which they disagree, but occasionally one may find a conservative thought that challenges, intrigues, or even persuades.” To begin to offer an idea of Reagan’s social writing, we can turn to his addresses, filled as they were with his ideas and spoken at the very least to a political, if not broadly national, audience.

Herring describes the pivotal speeches delivered by Reagan during his presidency. His speeches provided guidance as to the impending social issues on which the administration expected to take the lead, publicly presenting its stance. Intended to inspire action, they incorporate persuasive techniques within their declamatory style to encourage support for the President’s themes. This chapter examines the content of three major speeches, the rhetorical strategies used, and the supportive rationales from parallel forums that affected the speechwriting task. It attempts to show how in their creation, major goals of the speechmakers included not only stimulating action but also purposefully crafting a voice that would resound with the target audience. The speeches illustrate how the socially conservative, yet fiscally liberal “Reagan Revolution” of the 1980s needed a strong ethical base to be politically palatable. By an analysis of these speeches and strategies, one can begin to form a picture of the extent of Reagan Administration’s direct impact on contemporary American politics.

3. Legacy and Influence on Subsequent Presidents and Political Communication

Nor were Reagan’s speechwriters content to limit their influence to the twinkling words of other men. Screenwriter Don McAlvanye paired with Noonan to coauthor a book on Reaganite rhetoric titled A Hand-Picked Nation. In The Rhetorical Presidency, half of Jeffrey Tulis’ Hoopes-winning overstated argument is dedicated to the tulips that speeches such as Reagan’s were planting in the hearts of impressionable majoritarian therapy types. Railing against this psychologist-as-statesman with the force of a brilliant, bronzed Hollywood actor riding forth from out of the Sea of Galilee, Tulis would eventually flip his wig. See speechwriting, by thy sword, live by it as well. As opposed to the tolling bell of yet another generation of nihilism, Noonan now assures us that speechwriters will just go on “dying posh.”

The impact of Reagan’s speechwriters on American politics did not die with the administration. Peggy Noonan’s pithy, patriotic phrases could be more easily found on the lips of George H.W. Bush than in the gossip columns of DC. As Charles Osgood once wryly noted, “an awful lot of [Ronald Reagan’s] speeches seemed to be written by Peggy Noonan, including the one I just quoted from.” Heritage Foundation muse Ben Wattenberg advised Reagan’s successor that it was “very easy to root [Noonan’s speeches] out of a longish document.” Bush’s speechwriters transparently followed his example. “The fact is, his speechwriters had a deadly lilt,” Noonan later wrote of her onetime boss. Like Wattenberg, reporters soon learned to do the same.