Paul A. Russo
Reagan Ambassador to Barbados

I was delighted to learn that the Young America's Foundation has purchased theReagan Ranch, Rancho del Cielo. In making this purchase and restoring the Ranch,YAF is not only preserving and protecting a historically significant structurefor all America, but it is also affording future generations the opportunity tolearn about the personal side of President Reagan, a leader who was instrumentalin creating the environment that allowed America's Conservative youth movementto grow and prosper. I believe that the Ranch is almost synonymous with Reaganand that the American people over the years have viewed Ronald Reagan's love forhis horses and the Ranch as signs of a confident, good man, and a "symbol"of the rugged individualism that we have been ringing out of our society.

I can tell you from personal experience as a former member of his staff that when he was well enough, there was no place on earth that President Reagan preferred to be than on top of that mountain. I had the great honor of working for Ronald Reagan during the last few years of his second term as Governor of California, actually traveling with him during that 1973-1974 period. As he was leaving office, the Governor was doing a balancing act of selling his San Diego ranch and purchasing the Santa Barbara ranch. As he traveled throughout California, Governor Reagan carried a topographical map of the new property in his briefcase and as soon as the plane or car door would close, out the map would come. He would study it, and do little drawings on a pad he carried with him. After the purchase, Reagan began rebuilding the 100 year-old adobe farmhouse himself. Several weekends, I had the opportunity to join the work crew to help -- the Governor and Mrs. Reagan, Barney Barnett, Dennis LeBlanc, and my roommate, Rush Hill. Rush was an architect, and he was the technical "advisor" for the roof project when Reagan was restoring the Ranch House. The House itself, as modest as it is, started out even smaller. The walls and floors were in a state of complete disrepair, and it needed a new roof. Governor Reagan wanted it replaced with authentic Spanish tile, but Rush determined that the existing roof and walls would not hold the weight of real tile. He made a survey of the much lighter, synthetic roofing materials that were available, that had the look and color of the genuine Spanish tile. Well, Rush finally found a great product that looked perfect, was lightweight and, best of all, easy to install. We spent several weekends in a row with the Governor putting on the new roof. The "work crew" would start out early in the morning from the Governor's residence in Los Angeles (Pacific Palisades). Barney Barnett would drive us up to Santa Barbara, we'd continue up the long, narrow, winding mountain road to the Ranch, work all day, and return to Los Angeles late the same night, very tired. Ronald Reagan worked hard, as did Mrs. Reagan. It may be difficult for some today to imagine her in blue jeans, painting a concrete floor, but that is exactly the kind of thing she did back then.

Looking back, from my observation point at the time, it sure seemed that the early Ranch years were a wonderful period in Ronald Reagan's life. He had just completed a second successful term as Governor of California, he was in tremendous demand as a speaker -- especially at Republican events, and he was speaking out on the issues of the day in his newspaper column and on his own radio program. And he had time with Nancy to spend at the Ranch. During that time, the Governor was also focused on rebuilding the Ranch House, and creating the fences and riding-trails for the horses he loved and which were so much a part of his life. He loved the quote, "There is nothing better for the inside of a man, than the outside of a horse." I also believe that during this period, he was crystallizing his thinking; reconciling his well-honed Conservative philosophy with his experiences as chief executive of a major state, and looking at the condition of the country from a few steps back, really from the vantage point of the mountain-top. Just maybe, during his time up there, Governor Reagan was thinking through his plans for changing the country and just maybe riding those trails on his favorite horse helped him chart his course of action.

Reagan loved his Ranch, and returned to it as often as he could. Throughout those years, it seemed that he drew much of his strength and inner security from just being up there. And he could be very stubborn too, when it came to campaign schedulers trying to take time away from his time at the Ranch. In 1976 and again in the 1980 campaign, one of the major problems was getting enough campaign days for the candidate to cover the individual state primary campaigns on the east coast -- New Hampshire, and Florida in particular, and also cover the next phase of Midwestern states. It seemed simple to a lot of us in the campaign: "Let's just cut out those lengthy flights back and forth to California, and have him stay in the East." Sometimes the Governor would fly all the way from the east coast to California, just to spend a few days at the Ranch, and then fly back east. Well, it took lengthy, high level negotiations to get him, finally and reluctantly, in 1980 to agree to lease a farm in Middleburg, Virginia so he wouldn't have to go all the way back to California between campaign stops. It took Senator Paul Laxalt, Reagan's good friend and campaign chairman, to convince him that the sacrifice of being away from the Ranch was necessary to win the early primaries.

Of course, in 1976 Governor Reagan went on to challenge President Ford for the Republican nomination, narrowly losing. Running again in 1980, he defeated President Jimmy Carter in a landslide. The history of how Ronald Reagan changed the course of our country and indeed the world during his two terms in the White House is certainly well known, but I believe it is much less known where he thought through the ideas that he would later put into place as President to accomplish his dreams for America. The Young America's Foundation's initiative with the Ranch will add significantly to Ronald Reagan's legacy, and there could not be a better tribute to the man and his accomplishments.

There are hundreds of examples of Ronald Reagan's courage and grace under extremepressure, and his respect and caring for people as individuals during these crisisperiods. There is one small example of what I mean that happened during the 1980New Hampshire Republican primary campaign that I would like to share. At thispoint in the 1980 presidential campaign, we had just lost the Iowa Caucuses toGeorge H.W. Bush, our campaign was almost broke, and some in the national mediawere even writing us off. Tom Pettit of NBC declared Reagan "dead" themorning after the Iowa loss. If we had then lost New Hampshire, where Bush wasgoing in with momentum from his Iowa win, it would have been nearly impossiblefor us to recover.

But Governor Reagan's confidence and determination inspired the staff to perform far beyond its normal capabilities. Everyone knew that if we didn't win in New Hampshire, there was no second chance. Ronald Reagan set the pace; he was up and running from early morning until late at night. January and February are tough months in New Hampshire -- extreme cold, snow, ice, and wind. Moving 100 to 150 press and staff from stop to stop was a challenge, to say the least. The Secret Service many nights let the cars run all night because if they turned them off, it was so cold -- 40 degrees below zero sometimes -- they wouldn't turn over in the morning. One particular morning, at about 6:00 a.m., I had to wake up the Governor and tell him that there was no hot water -- the motel's pipes had frozen and burst -- which is a great way to start the day. The first several days of a grueling schedule dispelled any doubts about Reagan's age and stamina, which were issues at the time. He outworked the press and loved every minute of it. But more than that, he was up for the fight -- looking forward to the next stop, the next speech, the next questions.

We did six or seven stops a day: town hall meetings, Rotary Clubs, plant tours, coffee shops, leapfrogging our advance men and banners and sound equipment in order to keep up with the candidate. Momentum was building, and people were responding to Reagan's message and style. The crowds were beginning to be large for New Hampshire, and Reagan was in turn responding to the people, and to the drama and the challenge of the fight. The national media was watching every move, every word, looking for the misstep that could cost Reagan the election. Each day, you could feel the emotion building; the crowds could feel it, the staff could feel it, but was it real support that we were seeing? And was it building fast enough, and would these people at the events actually vote?

All the while, a major internal war was going on at the top of the campaign over who the campaign manager would be. The senior staff spent most days at the hotel, attempting to work out the campaign leadership problems. The good news was that, at this point, the problems weren't public yet. And while the pressure was extremely great, Governor Reagan understood that the only thing that mattered was winning New Hampshire; everything would be sorted out afterwards, if there was an afterwards.

Every morning, the busses left early, and we didn't get back until very late, sometimes near midnight. To complicate matters, we had to acknowledge a spending limit for the state, so many nights we had to drive to Massachusetts or Vermont to overnight, so that the expense of the overnight wouldn't be allocated to New Hampshire. But each day, day after day, Ronald Reagan always responded to the challenge. He knew the stakes. And he worked, every day, with the pressure of the national press evaluating his every move and every word. No one ever got enough sleep, and everyone was always tired and always cold, but Reagan was full of strength and enthusiasm. He was connecting with the people of New Hampshire, and his true character and philosophy were beginning to come through.

Even at this critical point in the campaign, with everything on the line, Ronald Reagan never varied from who he was: a strong but caring person. A small example of what I mean is a story about one (politically insignificant) old lady. One day, we were in a small New Hampshire town and an elderly woman came up to Governor Reagan, obviously delighted to meet him. She said that she lived in a nearby town and that she had heard he would be visiting there, and could he possibly come by the nursing home where she lived; her friends would just be thrilled to see him. He turned and asked me if we were indeed going to be in that town the next week, and I told him we were. Well, he then told the lady that, "Sure (he) would come by the nursing home and say hello to her friends," and he then turned and asked me if we could work it in. I made a mental note of it, and asked the Secret Service to get the location of the nursing home for a "possible" drop-by.

Well, as you might expect, the night before we were to visit the woman's town, there was a ferocious snow storm. New Hampshire can handle snow, but this was different -- heavy snow, blowing, freezing, too much for the plows to keep up with -- everything was frozen, and driving was treacherous. The first scheduled stop in the morning was at a gun shop; an important meeting place and also a major "symbol" to the New Hampshire gun owners and hunters, and there was no way we could get to it. But if we did the third stop first, and then went back to the gun shop after the roads had been plowed, we would be very late but we would get there. Rearranging the day's schedule this way, we might cover most of the day's events and still keep everyone reasonably happy. Well, the rearranging worked throughout the day, and we actually got back on schedule late in the afternoon. About 8:00 p.m. that night, going to the last scheduled stop -- a dinner, Reagan asked me, "Isn't this the town the woman wanted us to come by and see her friends at the nursing home?" To be honest, with the storm and all the rearranging, I had completely forgotten about the old woman but what could I say but, "Yes." It was clear that Governor Reagan remembered that the previous week he had told the old woman we would stop by and, even though it did not quite make sense to me, he wanted me to arrange it somehow. During the dinner event, I talked to the Secret Service and the local police, and told them that we were indeed doing the nursing home drop-by, if they could find it in the storm. With good reason, they looked at me like I was crazy.

By the time we left the dinner, the snow was blinding. Everyone was cold and tired, after a 14-hour day and wanted to get back to the hotel. We had two busses and a string of ten to twelve cars crawling through the town's narrow streets, up and down hills, looking for the nursing home. Somehow, we finally found it and got Reagan in a side door next to the parking lot. Coming from the dark, cold, near-blizzard outside and into the bright, warm room was an extreme but pleasant shock. As we walked through the door, you could hear the old lady say to her friends, "I told you he would come; he told me he would." They gave us chocolate chip cookies (of course), one old fellow was playing the piano, and the group of about 10 or 12 people sang, "You Are My Sunshine" to Reagan. It was truly one of those bizarre, emotional moments in a hard-fought campaign. The press had already filed their stories for the day, and the stop didn't mean much at all politically -- a dozen old people singing to Ronald Reagan. But that one old lady, as an individual, was important to him. I will never forget that small example of Ronald Reagan keeping his word, when it would have been so easy to forget the old lady and to skip the drop-by because of the storm. But he didn't.

And then just four days before the election, Reagan got the opportunity to "hit one out of the park." The Nashua Telegraph, one of the major newspapers in New Hampshire, invited Governor Reagan and George Bush to participate in a debate to be hosted by them. Both candidates accepted, and then Senator Dole, one of the other Republicans running in the Primary, appealed to the Federal Election Commission on the grounds that if the newspaper was allowed to sponsor the debate for just two of the candidates, it would in fact be an illegal corporate campaign contribution. The FEC agreed, so initially the Reagan campaign proposed splitting the cost between our campaign and the Bush campaign. Bush declined, and we wound up paying the entire cost so the debate could go forward as planned. Reagan was angry that the Bush campaign was trying to exclude the other Republican candidates. In his mind, they were all Party leaders and had a right to be heard, so since he was paying for the debate, he invited them all to attend. The evening of the debate, Senator Dole, Howard Baker, Phil Crane, and John Anderson showed up for the event. John Connally, who was also in the race, was campaigning in another state that day. A bizarre political situation then proceeded to unfold, a situation which allowed Reagan to demonstrate to the New Hampshire voters exactly who he really was. As it became time for the debate to begin, Reagan and Bush walked out on stage and sat in the only two chairs that were there. George Bush still refused to allow the other candidates to participate. The other candidates, four formidable Republican leaders, hesitated somewhat but then walked up and stood at the back of the small stage, behind Reagan. Then nothing happened; everything on the stage seemed to be frozen in place, nobody seemed to know what to do, and the audience began to grow restless and make noise. The moderator from the Telegraph then told the other candidates to get off the stage so the debate could begin. Governor Reagan picked up his microphone, stood up, and tried to explain to the crowd what indeed was going on. As he did so, the moderator from the newspaper told the sound man to turn off Governor Reagan's microphone. That was too much for Reagan. With obvious outrage and controlled anger, Ronald Reagan took charge. In an instant, he reduced a complicated political situation down to one line, the now-famous, "I'm paying for this microphone Mr. Breen." The crowd of 2,000-plus erupted in hoots and cheers -- they loved it. Ronald Reagan showed in that one instant that he was in charge, head and shoulders above the situation, above the other candidates, and that he was the leader the crowd had been looking for. Governor Reagan probably won the New Hampshire primary that night by his actions at the debate, but I firmly believe that the personal side of Reagan's character, like his sense of commitment to a politically insignificant old lady earlier in the campaign, had a great deal to do with why the people of New Hampshire came to trust and respect him.

Reagan obviously went on to win the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency...in two landslide elections. And, I am sure that the old lady in that New Hampshire nursing home never forgot that Ronald Reagan kept his word to her on a stormy winter night.