Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 4:56 a.m.
Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.
WEEKEND EDITION Dec. 6 - 7, 2003
"Do you know how to tell the ocean from California? The ocean has oil on it," Gov. Ronald Reagan told us on a charter plane flying from Sacramento to Fresno and later on to Santa Barbara before returning to Sacramento.
It was February of 1969 and rivers were flooding in California and there was oil gushing from a pipe that was sunk 3,500 feet into the ocean floor off the shore of Santa Barbara. I was the head of a federal agency designed to respond to disasters in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa. The prior summer had kept me busy with a typhoon, fires and a volcanic eruption but disasters in California exceeded the demands made by those disasters because of the high population density.
Our agency, now called FEMA, found Reagan and his staff easy to work with under any circumstances. His disaster staff and natural resources people were not only easy to work with but were also qualified to carry out their daily and emergency tasks. They were a perfect match for my team stationed in Santa Rosa and San Francisco. Our people, also mostly Californians, were a neat combination of young and old professionals who responded quickly and efficiently.
This was going through my mind last Monday night when watching the three-hour movie "The Reagans" on television. The governor, in his first term, may have had some harsh words for the federal government, but he and his staff worked well with us. Maybe the competence of my disaster expert, Ralph Burns, or those million dollar checks from Uncle Sam helped our relationship. However, I can't remember any of my colleagues from other federal agencies complaining about Reagan or his staff.
The television movie showed a thoughtful and concerned governor who couldn't please everybody. Those were turbulent times in our country and the distaste large numbers of Americans had for the Vietnam War was played out in the streets and on California campuses. The day of the shaggy young people, called hippies, challenging any semblance of authority reached its peak during Reagan's first six years in office. The odor of tear gas was not unfamiliar to the nostrils of thousands of Californians.
The governor's closure of several mental institutions was brought up in the movie by his son Ron. Others also viewed this action as being mean and insensitive which resulted in large numbers of homeless street people. Actually, the closure of mental institutions with adequate replacement by homes in neighborhoods was a good, but impractical, move. Many neighborhoods didn't accept them and large numbers of the mentally ill couldn't survive in an open society. Initially it might have saved money, but in the long run the results were disastrous for the patients, communities and government budgets. The institution closures weren't done by a mean man, but by a man who was trying to do what he had been convinced was the right thing to do.
Later I had the opportunity to see Reagan from a different angle. It was his second term in office and my first term as neighboring governor of Nevada. Again I saw a chief executive who was willing to cooperate and easy to work with on interstate problems. During his first term he had a very close relationship with my predecessor, Paul Laxalt, which continued during Paul's time in the U.S. Senate and Reagan's time in the White House.
Reagan was well liked by fellow governors. We enjoyed his company and exchanged ideas with him. We didn't see him as a policy heavyweight or national leader. I doubt if any of the governors believed that he would become president. Some even thought it was humorous when he talked about living in the White House. We were wrong. I didn't vote for him but respected him as our president. His domestic economic programs left me cold, but as far as I was concerned he was successful on the international stage during the Cold War.
So what about the movie? I would have to give actor James Brolin an A+ for his role as Reagan. I didn't know Nancy Reagan well enough to judge the acting of Judy Davis. However, I do recall Nancy's influence in the White House and admire her for the loving care she is providing for an incapacitated husband today. The only child I knew was his late daughter Maureen and found her to be an exceptional woman with great ability. She also, like Nancy, loved her father.
When it's all said and done, Ronald Reagan is a man who did what he thought was right. I don't believe he has a mean bone in his body. People who write movie scripts will always find it difficult to accurately or completely portray the life of a man who did so much. I didn't vote for him but respected him as our president.
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