WE DROPPED ONE BOMB ON SOME JAPANESE CITY? SO WHAT?

Donald Regan (The Economist, 6/19/03) (may require registration)

One of his continuing problems was what he called the “shadowy distaff presidency” run by Nancy Reagan. The president's wife had faith in the clairvoyant talents of a woman in San Francisco she called My Friend. From a study of Mr Reagan's horoscope the friend claimed to pick good days and bad days in the president's life. Mrs Reagan would in effect veto activities arranged by Mr Regan if they fell on bad days. Mr Regan described the vexing problem in his book “For the Record”:

The president's schedule is the single most potent tool in the White House, because it determines what the most powerful man in the world is going to do and when he is going to do it. By humoring Mrs Reagan we gave her this tool, or, more accurately, gave it to an unknown woman in San Francisco who believed that the zodiac controls events and human behavior and that she could read the secrets of the future in the movement of the planets.

The friend was particularly busy with advice when Mr Reagan met Mikhail Gorbachev at summits at Geneva and Reykjavik. She prepared a horoscope of the Russian leader as well. Nothing much resulted from these meetings so perhaps, inadvertently, they were held on bad days. For Mr Regan anyway there must have been quite terrible days when he regretted taking the job. Until he had become chief of staff, his life had been one long much-praised path to good fortune.

This is a uncharacteristically pedestrian obituary of a man who, had he ever been close to achieving anything, might have been a great tragic hero. But, much more importantly, does The Economist not realize that, in terms of making the modern world, the most important date since 1945 was October 12, 1986. On that date, to the consternation of leftists everywhere and against the wishes of many of his political and diplomatic advisers, President Reagan walked away from the table in Reykjavik and sealed the Soviet Union's doom. Posted by David Cohen at June 24, 2003 6:51 PM