Reviews for For the record

The average rating for For the record based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-12-02 00:00:00 Anthony Cassano Ah, to be 20 and read something just because it's in front of you.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-08-16 00:00:00 Hurgot Joseph A fairly straightforward read in terms of organization and the prose. The big reveal is that Nancy Reagan relied on an un-named psychic to determine which days were good and bad for presidential activities. Throughout the book, Regan hammers at this in loud and quiet ways, rightly showing its ridiculousness. The villains in the book are the ill-informed press, those who leak misleading or false information to the ill-informed press, Nancy Reagan, several Congressional Democrats, and maybe McFarlane and Poindexter. Regan touches on a several areas of his life and time in government. He focuses on Iran-Contra, his work on tax policy while at the Treasury Department, his youth in Boston, and his time in the Marines and on Wall Street. He touches upon Washington culture of leaks and misinformation and finds, without saying it explicitly, that there is much dishonor, double-speak, lack of keeping your word, and good people getting hurt. Specifically: Iran-Contra: Regan tries to demonstrate that he had very little do with this. He heard about some plans to sell weapons to Iran but claims that his purview as Chief of Staff was domestic and that he let the National Security Advisor do as he wished in foreign affairs. In the end he blames an out of control National Security Council (NSC) staff for the problem and hints only generally that Reagan might have trusted people too much and gave them a big idea and left it for them to implement. Not being steeped in all of this, it seems preposterous that the NSC, a policy-coordinating body, would be equipped to handle what is essentially an intelligence operation. In other words, more people must have been involved. Tax Policy: He does a good job describing the tax policy changes he sought and some steps he took to promote it, but there are some details missing of how it was achieved. He notes opposition but does not really describe how it was overcome except perhaps getting Reagan to take personal interest in pushing it. Russia: He does a good job describing the two summits he was involved with at Genera and in Iceland. I did enjoy the scene setting he did for the Geneva summit, the first one between Reagan and Gorbachev. The details are useful and provide a sense of the mood at the time. Given that this is my first real reading of the account of what happened in Iceland, I am a bit confused why SDI was such a sticking point for Reagan. I can only believe that Reagan had an investment in seeing his idea come to fruition even through it was very questionable at the time (and today!) that such a technical and engineering challenge could be successful at anything close to the scale desired and at a reasonable price. If they could get an reasonable agreement to eliminate nuclear ballistic missiles, that would seem a bigger win than keeping this theoretical capability. Reagan: He provides a mixed picture of Reagan. He clearly likes the president and sees good qualities in him, but he also describes the president’s desire to avoid personal confrontation. That’s a big weakness when dealing with Type-A advisors who will take the vague and casual guidance and implement it. Regan himself has to do this with his work at Treasury, never getting a good sense of what the Reagan wanted except by examining speeches and comments and only occasionally talking to the president. Reagan also comes across as engaged when he wants to be and a great communicator, mostly because he knows how to plays roles, given his past as an actor. He notes the constant reinforcement of Reagan’s confidence that was needed; the constant reassurance. In the end, he may like Reagan, but ends the book on quite a bitter tone. He feels that he was dishonorably pushed out of his Chief of Staff job and that he was not treated well. He is disappointed in how Reagan can’t tell him he is out man-to-man but is told by the vice president and via a leak about his successor. His last page is particularly bitter. At the time of the writing he says he had not spoken to the president and then matter of factly reprints the laudatory letter Reagan sent him after leaving his position. Regan notes he had seen many such letters as Chief of Staff and that he knew someone else had written it for Reagan. Ouch.