Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan [Hardcover]

Edmund Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1999

This book, the only biography ever authorized by a sitting President--yet written with complete interpretive freedom--is as revolutionary in method as it is formidable in scholarship. When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, one of his first literary guests was Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris developed a fascination for the genial yet inscrutable President and, after Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, put aside the second volume of his life of Roosevelt to become an observing eye and ear at the White House.

Coming and going with Reagan's benign approval ("I'm not going to ride up San Juan Hill for you"), Morris found the President to be a man of extraordinary power and mystery. Although the historic early achievements were plain to see--the restoration of American optimism and patriotism, a repowering of the national economy, a massive arms buildup deliberately forcing the "Evil Empire" of Soviet Communism to come to terms--nobody, let alone Reagan himself, could explain how he succeeded in shaping events to his will. And when Reagan's second term came to grips with some of the most fundamental moral issues of the late twentieth century--at Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen, at Geneva and Reykjavík,publicly outside the Brandenburg Gate ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"), and deep within the mother monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, Morris realized that he had taken on a subject of epic dimensions.

Thus began a long biographical pilgrimage to the heart of Ronald Reagan's mystery, beginning with his birth in 1911 in the heart of rural Illinois (where he is still remembered as "Dutch," the dreamy son of an alcoholic father and a fiercely religious mother) and progressing through the way stations of an amazingly varied career: young lifeguard (he saved seventy-seven lives), aspiring writer, ace sportscaster, film star, soldier,union leader, corporate spokesman, Governor, and President. Reagan granted Morris full access to his personal papers, including early autobiographical stories and a handwritten White House diary.

The pilgrimage climaxes in 1993, when, in a moment of aching poignancy, Morris escorts his aged and failing subject back up the stairs of his birthplace. "An odd, Dantesque reversal of roles had occurred, as if I were now the leader rather than the led."

During thirteen years of obsessive archival research and interviews with Reagan and his family, friends, admirers and enemies (the book's enormous dramatis personae includes such varied characters as Mikhail Gorbachev, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elie Wiesel, Mario Savio, François Mitterrand, Grant Wood, and Zippy the Pinhead), Morris lived what amounted to a doppelgänger life, studying the young "Dutch," the middle-aged "Ronnie," and the septuagenarian Chief Executive with a closeness and dispassion, not to mention alternations of amusement, horror,and amazed respect, unmatched by any other presidential biographer.

This almost Boswellian closeness led to a unique literary method whereby, in the earlier chapters of Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,Morris's biographical mind becomes in effect another character in the narrative, recording long-ago events with the same eyewitness vividness (and absolute documentary fidelity) with which the author later describes the great dramas of Reagan's presidency, and the tragedy of a noble life now darkened by dementia.

"I quite understand," the author has remarked, "that readers will have to adjust, at first, to what amounts to a new biographical style. But the revelations of this style, which derive directly from Ronald Reagan's own way of looking at his life, are I think rewarding enough to convince them that one of the most interesting characters in recent American history looms here like a colossus."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Why did Pulitzer-winning Theodore Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris controversially choose to write his authorized biography of Ronald Reagan in the form of a historical novel? There's a clue in a quote the book attributes to Jane Wyman, Reagan's first wife. As Ronnie speechified about the Red Menace at a 1940s Hollywood party, Wyman allegedly whispered to a friend, "I'm so bored with him, I'll either kill him or kill myself." This anecdote, if true, is more revealing than Nancy Reagan's charge in the book that Jane had attempted suicide to get Ronnie to marry her in the first place. Jane was no intellectual--Morris cracks that "If Jane had ever heard of Finland, she probably thought it was an aquarium"--but he found to his horror, after years of research, that he felt much the same as Wyman. Reagan was as boring as a box of rocks, as elusive as a ghost.

Decades before Alzheimer's clouded Reagan's mind, he showed a terrifying lack of human presence. "I was real proud when Dad came to my high school commencement," reports his son, Michael Reagan. After posing for photos with Michael and his classmates, the future president came up to him, looked right in his eyes, and said, "Hi, my name's Ronald Reagan. What's yours?" Poor Michael replied, "Dad, it's me. Your son. Mike."

Despite deep research and unprecedented access--no previous biography has ever been authorized by a sitting president--Morris could get no closer to Reagan's elusive soul than Reagan's own kids could. So Morris decided to dramatize Reagan's life with several invented characters--including a fictionalized version of himself and an imaginary gossip columnist who makes wicked comments on Reagan's career. This is one weird tactic, forcing the reader constantly to consult the footnotes at the back of the book to sort things out, and Morris makes it tougher by presenting his invented characters as real, even in the footnotes.

Ultimately, the hubbub over Morris's odd method is beside the point. His speculative entry into Reagan's life and mind is plausible, dramatic, literary, and lit by dazzling flashes of insight. The narrator watches the young Reagan as a lifeguard (years before the real Morris was born):

One tunnels along in a shroud of silvery bubbles, insulated from any sight or sound.... Others may swim alongside for a while, but their individuality tends to refract away, through the bubbles and the blur. Often I have marveled at Reagan's cool, unhurried progress through crises of politics and personnel, and thought to myself, He sees the world as a swimmer sees it.

We cannot verify Morris's notion that Reagan probably approved the illegal Iran-Contra funding without having a clue it was illegal, or that the "Star Wars" program sprang from his love of Edgar Rice Burroughs's first novel, A Princess of Mars, which featured glass-domed cities. But however bizarre and ignorant his thoughts were, however cold his heart, Morris believes, the guy did crush the Evil Empire and achieve greatness. Morris achieves a kind of greatness, too, but one wishes he had written a more straightforward dramatization of history. --Tim Appelo

From Library Journal

Few, if any, biographies in recent years have generated so much controversy about the role and responsibility of the biographer as this muddled but infuriatingly readable account. Morris received the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and, on the strength of that impressive work, was appointed Reagan's authorized biographer in 1985. Not necessarily to his credit, Morris may have invented the genre of virtual biography, through which the author insinuates himself into Reagan's life. As readers know now, the Morris in these pages is not even the real South African-raised Morris but an older American version about the same age as Reagan. Some events, notably the death of Reagan's infant daughter; his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) about Communist infiltration of the Screen Actors Guild; and his split with first wife Jane Wyman, are actually portrayed in play form, giving a surreal quality to these very real traumas. The reader, no matter how familiar with Reagan, will have trouble distinguishing fact from fable. Yet this work is recommended as a well-researched novel that features elegant writing, well-crafted, if caramelized anecdotes, and the skillful framing of Reagan's worldview through the mindset of the actor Reagan was always proud to be. Despite Morris's unprecedented access, Lou Cannon's President Reagan: The Role of A Lifetime (LJ 4/15/91) remains the most authoritative and historically correct account of the Reagan years. A caution for catalogers: if you classify this as nonfiction, consider adding a question mark by the Dewey number.AKarl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 896 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (September 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394555082
• ISBN-13: 978-0394555089
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (312 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( R ) > Reagan, Ronald

More About the Author

Edmund Morris is one of America's best political biographers and journalists. He is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. He lives in New York and Washington, DC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Disservice as a History, A Displeasure as a Novel., December 18, 2001

By 

D. W. Casey (Sturbridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (Hardcover)

Given that Edmund Morris had an unprecedented amount of access to Ronald Reagan and the White House, he had a duty as a historian to write a solid, historical work, impeccably researched, well annotated, and one that could form, at a minimum, a baseline for other future efforts.

Instead, the book he wrote is a travesty; a series of ramblings presented from a bewildering array of real and fictional characters. Morris unbelievably writes from the first person -- and writes of times, palces, and events which he could not have experienced first hand, except through his imagination. One never knows whether an insight or an opinion is that of the actual Morris or the fictional Morris whom he invented that went to Eureka College with Reagan in the 1930s. Given this, can one take the quotes Morris includes from Cap Weinberger or James Baker seriously? Legitimate and interesting historical questions Morris raises (did Reagan, the idealistic young Democrat, flirt with Communism in the 1940s?) are ruined because the author does not maintain the appropriate distance.

For such an important historical figure as Reagan, this is especially unfair treatment.

Morris is trying to make a point with all this -- which is that if you scratch the surface of Reagan, you will find that there is nothing there. But instead of using this to write a legitimate history, he becomes so disillusioned that he can only write this disturbing act of literary and historical vandalism. If Morris beleives that Reagan "was an airhead", he should lay out the facts, back it up with research and quotes, and lay the record bare. This collection of musings, half-truths, and speculation ultimately is an unfair assassination of character.

Although Morris is a far bettter writer than Dinesh D'Souza, I am forced to conclude that D'Souza's book, which is a one-sided apologia for Reagan, not only is more accurate but is a better work of history.

I am saddened by this book, Dutch, as I have been by few others. Reagan, the American people, and history deserve better.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lifegaurd of a Nation, June 6, 2004

By 

Kelly L. Norman "li'l rock & roller" (Plymouth, MI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (Paperback)

The death of Ronald Reagan brought me back to this book, which I last read a couple of years ago. It chronicles everything important, and definitely many things of which I (a socialist-leaning college student during his Presidency) had been unaware.

The best work Morris does in this book chronicles two processes: First, the rise of Reagan's political career, giving generous attention to his subject's tenure at GE Theatre, which gave him the opportunity to share some of his new views (remember, he'd been a staunch FDR democrat up until the 60's), the Goldwater campaign, and the California governership. Second, a wonderfully detailed account of the summits with Mikhail Gorbachev and the President's defense of SDI, popularly called "Star Wars". The result shows a man, a former lifegaurd "who saved 77 lives" we are oft reminded, much more intelligent than he is portrayed in the popular press. He is not above, however, using his appearance of naivete to his advantage His insistance on calling Gorbachev "Mikhail" (with a twinkle in his eye) during the Reykyavic converence, even though he'd been briefed that it was impolite not to refer to him without his patronymic, i.e. "Mikhail Sergeievitch", unsettles the General Secretary just enough to cause annoyance, but not censure. There was no question, Morris contends, that Reagan knew exactly what he was doing.

I found Morris's use of fictional devices annoying, too. And although he has explained that his subject was so cold and distant at times, he needed the two fictional protagonists to pull the story together, truly the rest of the "story" stands on its own. At times his fictional characters overshadow the real ones. And then it's only the promise of page after page of accurate revelations that keep one from abruptly ending the book and calling it a stalemate. My hope is that he has learned his lesson about this and will continue to apply his talents in research and prose without artificially inserting devices that simply confuse the reader.

66 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great novel, bad bio, November 22, 2000

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (Hardcover)

Fittingly, I feel compelled to interject a story from my own life as I begin this review. You see, I believe that there is a personal episode which illuminates the controversy surrounding this book. When I attended Colgate University (Class of '83), I was a History major, which required completion of a Senior Seminar including a major research project and paper. But, truth be told, I was not a particularly good student and as the deadline for this paper approached, I realized that I could not possibly hope to complete the volume of research that was expected of me. So I approached the professor, on the day the paper was due, and received tearful permission to alter my topic slightly, but this seemingly minor adjustment allowed me to essentially write an extended essay instead of a true research paper. Freed from the requirement that I actually go through the drudgery of research, I rattled off a really good twenty page essay in a couple days.

It seems to me that Edmund Morris found himself in much the same position and resorted to a similarly dishonest ploy in order to complete his Reagan biography. It is obvious that he did extensive work on Reagan's early life (say up to the end of his acting career) and, of course, he was in attendance for several years of the presidency. But what is missing here is the context and the background for Reagan's political career, let alone a detailed account of those years. Among the really pivotal events that go unmentioned or are dealt with in passing are all three presidential campaigns, the Panama Canal debates, the PATCO strike, the Tax Reform bill, etc. These are not little things. In fact, they are central to an understanding of what makes Reagan a seminal figure in recent history. No serious biography of Ronald Reagan can conceivably be complete without tackling them. So what happened?

Well, this is a really interesting illustration of my maxim that the commonly accepted wisdom is always wrong. Edmund Morris was hired to be Reagan's semi-official biographer on the strength of his Teddy Roosevelt biography, which truly is a great book. But there is one vital fact that noone realized at the time, and which still seems to elude critics and commentators; the book ends before it gets to the presidential years. We all just assumed: major political figure as topic + great book = ability (and or desire) to write a great political biography. But there is really no evidence that Morris understands, nor is curious about, the actual mechanics of politics and the impact of political ideas. In retrospect, it should have been seen as troubling that he was willing to set aside the Roosevelt story just as he got to what most biographers would consider the crux of the tale.

So we have here a terrific author, but foreign born and apparently uninterested in politics, trying to take on a man who transformed the political world. In order to begin to understand what had happened, Morris would have had to immerse himself, not just in personal interviews and old yearbooks and the like, but in research on the Cold War on American anti-Communism on the growth of the New Deal and the Great Society on Goldwater and Bill Buckley and so on. So he did what I did, he figured out a way to get around the heavy lifting. All the dodges and devices that he trots out are simply there to disguise the fact that he didn't feel like learning what he needed to in order to produce a genuine political biography. Instead, he gives us a book that is almost entirely personal. There is one particularly revealing passage late in the book, Morris's Diary entry of December 31, 1988:

For whatever reason, there was born here, far from the mattering world, an ambition as huge as it was inexorable. Out of Tampico's ice there grew, crystal by crystal, the glacier that is Ronald Reagan: an ever-thrusting, ever-deepening mass of chill purpose. Possessed of no inner warmth, with no apparent interest save in its own growth, it directed itself toward whatever declivities lay in its path. Inevitably, as the glacier grew, it collected rocks before it, and used them to flatten obstructions; when the rocks were worn smooth they rode up onto the glacier's back, briefly enjoying high sunny views, then tumbled off to become part of the surrounding countryside. The lie where they fell, some cracked, some crumbled: Dutch's lateral moraine. And the glacier sped slowly on.

In that sense, I suppose, one could say that the story of Reagan's life is a study in American topography. Thirteen hundred miles southeast of Tampico this winter day, the glacier has at last stopped growing. The nation's climate is changing; so is that of the world. New suns, new seasons, are due. Yet when all the ice is gone, when fresh green covers the last raw earth and some future skylark sings heedlessly over the Ronald Reagan National Monument, men will still ponder Dutch's improbable progress, and write on their cards, How big he was! How far he came! And how deep the valley he carved!

First, to give him his due, it is writing of this quality that had folks so excited about the prospect of a Ronald Reagan biography by Edmund Morris. But, to borrow his metaphor, the essential problem with the book is that it is completely focussed on the glacier and, when you get right down to it, we don't really care as much about glaciers for their intrinsic qualities, we care about the massive change that they wreaked on the environment that we now inhabit. Morris recognizes that Reagan changed the American topography, but he never examines that change. For him, the remarkable thing about Ronald Reagan is that he became president. For humankind, the remarkable thing about Reagan is that in the depths of the Cold War, when the USSR and Communism seemed to be winning and thirty years of Big Government had left America ill equipped to fight back, he imagined the West's eventual victory and the renaissance of an unfettered American economy and he imposed that dream upon an unwilling Western intellectual establishment, American Congress and seemingly ascendant Eastern Bloc. Today we live in the world that Ronald Reagan, but precious few others, envisioned. While Edmund Morris pursues the glacier to its end, he fails to comprehend the change left in its wake, perhaps because he fails to understand the constancy of purpose and the force of ideas which drove the glacier's progress.

The end result of all this is that Morris delivers up:

1) An excellent novel

and

2) The best written memoir we are ever likely to have by someone who knew Ronald Reagan

but

3) An extraordinarily inept and inexcusably lazy biography

GRADE: as a novel: A; as a biography: F