What Would Reagan Do?
Michael Reagan, son of Ronald, on his relationship with his famous father and the state of politics today
Michael Reagan has heard his father’s name a lot lately as presidential candidates and commentators have discussed—and tried to claim—the legacy of Ronald Reagan. “How many times was my father’s name mentioned today?” he asks. “A thousand.”
In his new book, “Lessons My Father Taught Me,” Mr. Reagan, 71, aims to reveal the man behind the public persona. Organized into life lessons such as how to deal with defeat and the importance of family and marriage, the book is filled with anecdotes as well as tenets of his father’s leadership style. Mr. Reagan writes that his father negotiated with Republicans and Democrats alike, and that instead of lobbing insults at politicians with different views, he tended to agree to disagree. Today, says Mr. Reagan, “if we want to win on the Republican side, we’ve got to be more likable and relatable.”
Mr. Reagan grew up in Los Angeles as the adopted son of Ronald and the actress Jane Wyman. His parents divorced in 1949, when he was 4. When he was 6, they sent him and his sister, Maureen, to boarding school, a common practice among Hollywood parents at the time, he says.
He struggled with being the son of two celebrities. “When you’re a child being raised in a home with an actor or actress, the child is looking for the same thing the actor or actress is looking for—applause,” he says.
At first, his mother was the more famous of the couple. “I was Jane Wyman’s kid up until my dad gave that speech,” he says. He’s referring to his father’s October 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” given in support of Barry Goldwater’s doomed presidential campaign, which brought his father to national attention in politics.
Mr. Reagan attended Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, though he never graduated. His early jobs included working as a loading-dock hand, a boat salesman and an actor with small parts in TV shows and movies. Then in 1983, he became a guest host for commentator Michael Jackson’s talk-radio show on KABC in Los Angeles, starting a 26-year stint on talk radio.
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Today, people still ask him what he does aside from being the son of the former president. “I wrote seven books and have five world records in powerboat racing!” he exclaims. He became interested in the sport while working on the loading docks in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. One of his records, set in 1983, was for racing through the Great Lakes from Chicago to Detroit in 12 hours, 34 minutes, at speeds of up to 85 miles an hour.
Mr. Reagan wrote his first book, an autobiography called “ Michael Reagan: On the Outside Looking In,” in 1988. His subsequent books have covered aspects of his life, from being adopted to being molested as a child by a camp counselor to becoming a born-again Christian. Today, he lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif., with his wife. They have two adult children.
In the past decade, Mr. Reagan has spent more time talking about his father, giving speeches around the country and running the Ronald Reagan Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that gives out scholarships and supports exhibits about his father in museums.
Mr. Reagan says that it took him a long time to develop his own political views. After campaigning with his father in 1980, he got used to answering questions from his father’s perspective. It wasn’t until a caller on his radio show asked him how he personally felt about an issue that he stopped to figure it out.
He considers himself a moderate Republican and endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich in March. On Tuesday afternoon, with Indiana primary voters about to give Donald Trump a resounding victory and a clear path to the GOP nomination, Mr. Reagan tweeted: “The Republican Party is no longer the Party of Reagan.” It is “now the Party of Trump.”
He has no plans to participate in the election and says that Mr. Trump has violated what his father called the “11th commandment”: Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
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One of Ronald Reagan’s qualities that he thinks is missing in today’s politicians is common sense, with “legislators in both parties annually [voting] for bigger and bigger deficits,” Mr. Reagan writes in his new book. “I guarantee my father, were he president today, would wage all-out war against this fiscal madness.”
On a more personal note, he writes that he loved his dad but that their relationship wasn’t always easy. “He didn’t do the things with me that other kids got to do,” he writes. “He never took me to a baseball game, a football game, or Disneyland.”
But Mr. Reagan says that his father worked hard to understand his children and often shared stories and lessons with them. He recalls that at age 9, he asked his father (still an actor at the time) for a raise in his allowance. His father replied, “When I get a tax cut, I’ll raise your allowance.” A discussion on taxes and welfare programs followed. Mr. Reagan did eventually get that raise—10 years later.
Although his relationship with his father was difficult at times, Mr. Reagan says he now understands why his father couldn’t spend as much time with him as he had hoped. “I think a lot of us make the mistake of not learning while our parents are with us sometimes, and we don’t see the positive side because you’re living in that moment,” he says. “Where I’m lucky is I finally decided to sit down to figure it all out and then learn to forgive.”
Write to Alexandra Wolfe at [email protected]
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