The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism
Recorded on January 19, 2007
Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
Ronald Reagan began his political career as a Hollywood liberal.
An active Democrat, he supported FDR and participated in radio
broadcasts on behalf of Harry Truman during his 1948 campaign.
However, in the 1950s, Reagan abandoned liberalism to adopt the
conservative ideology that would come to define the political
culture of American in the last decades of the 20th Century. While
it is agreed that Reagan's anti-Communism grew out of his
experiences with the Hollywood communists of the late 1940s, the
origins of Reagan's conservative economic ideology have remained
obscure.
The Education of Ronald Reagan links the eight years in
which Reagan worked for General Electric - acting as host of its
television program, GE Theater, and as the company's
public relations envoy - with his conversion to a movement that
would come to advocate lower taxes, small government,
anti-Communism, and opposition to the excesses of "union
officials." Thomas Evans shows how Reagan's time at GE shaped his
political and economic outlook and highlights the pivotal influence
of GE executive Lemuel Boulware, who was a free-market
fundamentalist and skilled political operative, on Reagan's
political ascendancy.
Thomas W. Evans, a lawyer and avocational politician, has
served as Adjunct Professor of Education and Administration at
Columbia University's Teachers College. His other books
include The School in the Home and Mentors. He
was Chairman of the Reagan Administration's national symposium on
partner-ships in education and Counsel to the Points of Light
Foundation under George H. W. Bush. A marine platoon leader in
Korea, he was awarded the Silver Star and two Purple
Hearts.