Phillips indulges in a little Gipper Adulation himself. Nothing I've read about Reagan's writings (let alone nothing of his writings that I've read) convinces me that the guy was any more of an intellectual powerhouse than he seemed at the time. In fact, he always comes across as banal and shallow. But he'll never lack for people who will make all kinds of excuses for his mind.
Still, at least KP read the diaries so we (who have more interesting and important reading to do) don't have to.
http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2007/06/17/books/1154678587254.html?8tpw&emc=tpw...
The diaries also shed quite a bit of light on the former California governor’s particular brand of Republican politics. He made periodic negative references to some of the Republican Party’s moderates — Senators Charles Mathias, Bob Packwood and Lowell Weicker, for example. However, he was equally critical (or more so) of New Right and supply-side stalwarts like Richard Viguerie; Howard Phillips; William Simon; Senators Jesse Helms, Gordon Humphrey and Bill Armstrong; and the weekly conservative magazine Human Events. To Reagan, the Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times is “becoming as R. Wing as The Post is L. Wing.”
Much as he favored tax cuts and spending reductions, he drew a line at supporting zealots in the House of Representatives like Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich, explaining to himself why he thought their economic proposals were simplistic. Reagan thought Kemp was particularly uncollaborative and unhelpful. The conservative breed he favored included California money men who were his old friends; Wall Street mavericks like Treasury Secretary Donald Regan and William Casey, the director of central intelligence; moderate conservatives like James Baker III and Howard Baker (two of his choices for White House chief of staff); George Shultz and Henry Kissinger in foreign affairs; Margaret Thatcher and her colleagues in Britain; and the East Coast, somewhat Tory-type American conservatives centered around William F. Buckley’s National Review. By 1984, he was frequently talking to — and heeding — former President Nixon.
Perhaps the ultimate indication of where Reagan stood was his increasing support for Vice President George H. W. Bush as his political heir. I can’t remember a single sentence in “The Reagan Diaries” that was critical of Bush. By late 1984, just after his landslide re-election, he noted that Howard Baker had inquired whether he would be neutral in the race for the Republican nomination in 1988. On Nov. 27, 1984, Reagan told himself what he probably had not told Baker: “When the time comes I’m afraid that my heart will be with George B. if he makes the run.” Nowhere does he discuss Bush’s internal White House influence, but it was probably great, especially in matters relating to foreign policy and the Central Intelligence Agency.
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