ALTERMAN: READING REAGAN

[dArKeR]

I was not a fan of Ronald Reagan.  And his death at the ripe old age of 93 does not change that.  Perhaps he was a nice man, perhaps not.  His children had some harsh words for him as a father and his former associates, like Michael Deaver, were often shocked at how little personal connection he seemed to feel to them once their professional relationships ended.  I never met the man and as citizen of the nation he helped transform and a historian of those events, it doesn’t really matter to me whether he was a nice guy, a good father, a good friend or anything else, save how those qualities affected his public achievements and accomplishments.  These, of course, were myriad.  Reagan was unarguably a public figure of enormous import, no question about it.  As Todd Gitlin observes here, Reagan was a “great man,” but that is not same thing as saying that he was a good man.

I wrote this four years ago, and while if I had written it in the aftermath of the man’s death, I would have been a bit gentler about him personally—and so I don’t recommend you’re reading it if you find yourself in a state of raw emotion over Reagan’s demise— nothing about it is any less true today than it was four years ago.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

My 2 personal closest personal experiences with Reagan;
1. Say him come to DeAnza sport field in 1984? I am a hobby photographer. I personally saw and took pictures of people being push away and not allowed inside the field gate by Santa Clara County Sheriffs. These people had missiles painted on their t-shirts, small cardboard signs... I saw people try to enter by themselves. There was not shouting or disorderly conduct. Vaguely I believe there was a 15 year lawsuit running about this illegal act. (In conclusion, the people were NOT any threat and were not shouting or causing a disruption and were trying to enter public property. I have pics stored at my Dads house, if he didn't toss them while I was overseas.)

2. Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, through the entire plant, all behind closed doors, restricted areas not open to the public, put up pro Reagan signs, with his picture and slogans. They weren't official election posters but they were Vote for Reagan signs.

3. LMSC made a pro Reagan video which every employee had to watch with their project group. With government contracts you always have to have a charge number to use as you do tasks so that the correct contract is billed. But there are allowances for going to the bathroom, a drink, make a personal phone call... but it must be less than 15 minutes. If less than 15 than you don't have to change charge numbers (you continue billing to your current task/contract.) So LMSC made this pro Reagan, Vote for Reagan video that every employee HAD to watch. But the video was made to be 14 minutes and 30 seconds so that the United States of America tax payers paid their millions of dollars for the employees to watch the video. I am sure this was illegal. Not only against some kind of election laws but I'm 100% sure this was a type of Government accounting/billing FRAUD. Surely punishable by prison time and not just a fine. I can depose this happened at the Sunnyvale plant and I'll bet it happened at all the Lockheed plants so there are about 100,000 witnesses. It's just the Whore Media who never reported it to you.

A. I was arround LMSC long enough to know that 40% to 50% of the employees were Democrats in political idealology. They all believe in a strong America but within reason not to bankrupt the nation and/or killing innocent people in foreign countries. All the people I knew believed in fair and honest political election systems. What LMSC Corporate leaders did was well past 'Fair and Balanced'. It was immoral and illegal.

In my opinion, Reagan brought America real government/corporate corruption. Reagan brought America Elitism Corporate stealing from the Middle and Lower sectors of American society.

[papau]

1. Truth and well written - makes for a great article! :-)

:-)

[dArKeR]

2. Reagan brought America: It's OK to cheat to win

This is the one sentence to summerize Reagan.

Also, let's not forget the Carter debate papers were stolen and used to prepare Reagan for his debate with Carter. If this cheating didn't happen there may have never been a Reagan Presidency.

[dArKeR]

3. Reagan & FBI - Conspiracy to Silence Dissent in America

Feds Worked to Quash College Protests
Sat Jun 8, 9:34 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The FBI (news - web sites), working covertly with the CIA (news - web sites) and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), spent years unlawfully trying to quash the voices and careers of students and faculty deemed subversive at the University of California, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

For years the FBI denied engaging in such activities at the university. But a 17-year legal challenge brought by a Chronicle reporter under the Freedom of Information Act forced the agency to release more than 200,000 pages of confidential records covering the 1940s to the 1970s, the newspaper reported in a special section for its Sunday editions.

Those documents describe the sweeping nature of the FBI's activities and show they ranged far beyond the campus and into state politics as the agency plotted to end the career of UC President Clark Kerr while aiding Reagan's political career.

http://www.hippy.com/php/article-169.html

[dArKeR]

4. Reagan, Hoover and the UC Red Scare

http://sfgate.com/campus/

[dArKeR]

5. Feds Worked to Quash College Protests, Boost Reagan's Political Career

SAN FRANCISCO - The FBI, working covertly with the CIA and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, spent years unlawfully trying to quash the voices and careers of students and faculty deemed subversive at the University of California, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

For years the FBI denied engaging in such activities at the university. But a 17-year legal challenge brought by a Chronicle reporter under the Freedom of Information Act forced the agency to release more than 200,000 pages of confidential records covering the 1940s to the 1970s, the newspaper reported in a special section for its Sunday editions.

Those documents describe the sweeping nature of the FBI's activities and show they ranged far beyond the campus and into state politics as the agency plotted to end the career of UC President Clark Kerr while aiding Reagan's political career.

Only after federal judges repeatedly ruled that the FBI had drifted unlawfully from intelligence gathering into politics — and the case was about to be heard by the Supreme Court — did the FBI settle, removing much of the blacked-out material in the files.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0609-07.htm

[dArKeR]

6. Scott Hinckley had a dinner date with Neil Bush

Talk about a small world! At about 2:30 in the afternoon of March 30, 1981, it became positively microscopic.

Crouching on the sidewalk in front of the Washington Hilton, a young man who modeled himself on Robert DeNiro's not-so-right Travis Bickle character from the movie, Taxi Driver, drew a bead on the new president. Steadying his .22-caliber pistol in both hands, John Hinckley, Jr., began firing explosive "devastator" bullets at Ronald Reagan. In the ensuing pandemonium, the sixth slug found its mark.

Apparently, before Secret Service agents could muscle the elderly president into his bulletproof limo, a shot had ricocheted off the armored sedan's fender, plowing into Reagan's armpit and puncturing the Gipper's lung. Had Hinckley scored a more direct hit that day, Vice President George Bush almost certainly would have ascended to the presidency, sloughing off his second-banana status eight years ahead of schedule.

Small world, indeed. For that very same day, John Hinckley's older brother, Scott, had a dinner date with an old friend of the family: Neil Bush, son of the vice president. What some saw as merely an odd coincidence prompted more conspiratorially attuned eyebrows to arch like divining rods. After all, what are the odds of the president's constitutional successor and the president's would-be assassin knowing each other? Probably zero.

http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/reagan.html

[dArKeR]

7. The governor's race - Hoover wanted to help Reagan

With a fire crackling in the hearth behind him, Reagan faced the television camera and announced on Jan. 4, 1966, that he would run for governor of California.

To Hoover and other FBI officials who had been frustrated with Brown's and Kerr's failure to end the protests at UC, Reagan was a breath of fresh air.

Over the years, the bureau had taken note as the charismatic actor who wanted to star in "The FBI Story" transformed himself into a leading conservative spokesman.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/09/MNCF3.DTL


Lots of good links:
http://www.havenworks.com/hermit/lisnews/posts/20020610-FBI~s-Domestic-Political-Machinations--Uncensored-1950~s-FOIA-Documents.htm

[dArKeR]

8. Operation Nighttrain - conceived while Reagan was Governor of California

My first request to the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (³FOIA²) was in 1977 (Slide). The FBI replied by asking for my and Stephen Gaskin¹s fingerprints (Slide). I respectfully declined (Slide), pointing out that nothing in the FOIA placed such a requirement upon requesters. The FBI refused to provide anything more (Slide), and I neglected to pursue the matter for some years. In 1987, a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (³CISPES²) uncovered a massive program by the FBI targeting the Sanctuary movement. (Slide) Among the CISPES discoveries was a clandestine program by the Reagan Administration to round up and imprison in special detention camps a wide range of social activist groups. The plan, dubbed ³Operation Nighttrain² or ³REX-84,² was originally conceived while Reagan was Governor of California, by emergency management officials who were subsequently brought to Washington and put in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (³FEMA²).8 The FEMA plan, under the direction of Attorney General Edwin Meese, was to be implemented in the event that the United States went to war with communist elements in Central America, such as the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. It is possible that the timely CISPES disclosure of the existence of Operation Nighttrain kept the United States from what would surely be another Vietnam War, although it did not keep Reagan and his staff from pursuing a more clandestine Iran-Contra initiative (until Eugene Hassenfus was shot down and taken prisoner). What sparked my interest was that The Farm was listed among the subversive groups targeted by FEMA, presumably because of it¹s program to educate Guatemalan teenagers in appropriate village technology by bringing them to Tennessee on H-3 training visas (Slide).

http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/akbp3.html

[dArKeR]

9. Reagan's Legacy Not Unblemished - CBS

The most serious crisis of Ronald Reagan's two terms - and the lowest point in his popularity - came after the revelation that his administration had secretly sold arms to Iran and turned over the profits to rebels fighting the Marxist government of Nicaragua.

At the time he was asked if he'd made a mistake in sending arms to Tehran.
His response: "No and I'm not taking any more questions."

Reagan's national security staff approached Iran in an effort to free American hostages being held in Lebanon, despite a vow that the administration would never negotiate with terrorists.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/07/eveningnews/main621620.shtml