The Reagan Diaries

by Ronald Reagan, edited by Douglas Brinkley

HarperPress £30, pp784

You don't get to be President of the United States of America by accident. Or, then again, do you? If you substituted every instance of the word 'Soviet' in The Reagan Diaries with another word such as 'golf' and replaced all mentions of 'General Noriega' with, say, 'Bob Hope', you could be reading the desktop diary of the chief executive of a middle-ranking American company engaged in the manufacture of, I don't know, sporting goods.

Except, actually, it's hard to believe that Ronald Reagan would have made it as far as chief executive. More likely, he'd be the senior sales rep, the one sent overseas to gladhand the foreign clients and talk up the company; who moans about his workload and counts the days until the weekend when he gets back to his favourite activity - chopping down trees and clearing brushwood in his backyard.

This is, of course, a grossly unfair summary of the Reagan years as well as a considerable underestimation of the drive and ambition that propelled a B-list actor to become for almost a decade the most powerful man in the Western world. And yet you won't find much evidence of either here. What you have, instead, is a homespun account of Reagan's White House years - a daily enumeration of meetings attended, dignitaries met and world events that have occurred.

'Easy' days in the office are noted with a certain amount of glee; 'homework' is ticked off as it's done and 'presidential chores' have to be attended to: in Reagan's interpretation, being President isn't so much a calling or an honour as a job. Forget The West Wing; the White House during the Reagan years is more like an episode of The Office.

He was one of the most popular American Presidents of the postwar years, and in this, the diaries are illuminating: he wasn't faking the common touch; the concerns and preoccupations of millions of Americans were his too. He's sentimental and patriotic; lumps come to his throat during the 'Star-Spangled Banner', tears to his eyes on seeing American coffins, and there are at least two instances of him cracking while watching a TV telethon and pledging $1,000 over the phone.

In his foreword, editor Douglas Brinkley makes the point that Reagan wasn't a natural diary-keeper. He began only when he took office, and Nancy explains that 'we just wanted a way to capture the moment and our feelings before we were whisked on to the next day so we could savour it a little more'. Later, they 'would often sit together in their den after dinner, reading aloud from their diaries and reminiscing about their White House years'.

And where would Ron have been without Nancy? She never had the greatest of press (Reagan tells his daughter Patti 'what a bum rap her mother was taking from a few bitchy columnists'), but who could have guessed that Ron'n'Nancy were such sweet lovebirds? After he's shot, he opens his eyes 'to find Nancy there. I pray I'll never face a day when she isn't there. Of all the ways God blessed me, giving her to me is the greatest and beyond anything I can ever hope to deserve'.

He hates it whenever she goes away and is so heartsick at one point that he resorts to watching an Errol Flynn movie, Robin Hood, in the middle of the afternoon, rushing down the stairs to greet her - or 'Mommie' as he calls her - when she gets home.

If she was his Lady Macbeth, there's no evidence for it in the diaries, although it's fascinating how their relationship entirely eclipses the one he has with his children. Patti falls under the influence of the environmental crackpots; he argues with his son, Ron, over the phone and declares: 'I'm not talking to him until he apologises for hanging up on me.' Mike, his adopted son from his first marriage to Jane Wyman, he damns as 'a very disturbed young man'. It's here that you can attempt to excavate the ideological underpinnings of Reagan's core beliefs, although it's hard to know which came first. His children, apart from his oldest, the sensible Maureen, are products of the Sixties, a decade he believes corrupted true American values. Of the film An Officer and a Gentleman, he notes it was a 'good story spoiled by nudity, language & sex'; Nine to Five by gratuitous 'pot-smoking'.

His old Hollywood pals, 'the Stewarts, the Grants & the Fairbanks etc', are always popping over for dinner and at least once a week, if not more, he 'runs' a movie in the White House or at the ranch, but too often it's spoiled by 'd--n' politics. 'Ran Inchon,' he notes at one point, 'a brutal but gripping picture about the Korean war and for once we're the good guys and the communists are the villains.'

In the later years, he gives up on new films altogether. On a trip to a European summit in Venice, while staying in a 16th-century palazzo ('very beautiful but not quite as convenient as staying in a Hilton hotel'), he brings along a videotape of an old John Wayne movie; towards the end of his second term, he's watching reruns of Bedtime for Bonzo.

And politics? International affairs? It's here. Everything you need to know about the Iran-Contra affair is contained within the entry where he talks of 'a highly secret convoluted process that sees Israel freeing some 20 Hizbollahs who aren't really guilty of any blood-letting. At the same time they sell Iran some "TOW" anti-tank weapons. We in turn sell Israel replacements & the Hizbollah free our five hostages. Iran also pledges there will be no more kidnappings. We sit quietly & never reveal how we got them back.'

Nor is the credit he's given for helping end the Cold War entirely convincing, not least because of the lack of any great insights on his part. An adviser tells him that 'he's convinced "Gorby" is a different type than past Soviet leaders & that we can get along. I'm too cynical for that'. He adores Maggie, delights in 'fairy-tale' dinners at Windsor Castle with the Queen, dislikes Mitterand, hates those 'd--n terrorists' and hopes they 'rot in h-ll'. His passions are horse-riding at the ranch, The Waltons, chopping logs. And it's the quotidian details of life as President that are the pleasures of 'Adrian Mole: The White House Years': 'Spent Sunday by the pool - broke in a pair of blue jeans. Swam in them & let them dry on me - it took hours. Called Kissinger & asked him to chair the Central Am task force.'