Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

by Edmund Morris

Edmund Morris has been absorbed in the life of Ronald Reagan for the last thirteen years, with unparalleled access to his papers, his friends, and his family. This audiobook will inform, engross, and even astonish those who believe they already know Ronald Reagan--as well as those who do not know him at all.

When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, one of his first literary guests was Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. An extraordinary relationship--genial yet mysterious on the President's side, admiring yet unsentimental on Morris's--developed between the two men. Reagan granted Morris monthly interviews in the Oval Office, plus unrestricted access to his papers and family and friends.

The result, after fourteen years of obsessive research, is a biography that is as much a memoir as narrative--a pilgrimage to the heart of Ronald Reagan's mystery. It begins with his birth in 1911 in the heart of rural Illinois (where he is still remembered as "Dutch"), and progresses through the way stations of an amazingly varied career: young lifeguard, aspirant writer, ace sportscaster, film star, soldier, union leader, corporate spokesman, Governor, and President.

Here, recreated with participatory vividness (and some original historic audio clips) are the early achievements of the Reagan Era: a restoration of American optimism and patriotism, a re-powering of the national economy, and a massive arms buildup deliberately forcing the "Evil Empire" of Soviet Communism to come to terms. Here, too, is the septuagenarian President who came to grips with some of the most fundamental moral issues of the late twentieth century--at Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen, in Geneva and Reykjavik and Berlin. This audiobook closes with an achingly tender account of Reagan's post-presidential decline into dementia.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Presidents, Politics, American History, Us Presidents

874 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name

Edmund Morris was a writer best known for his biographies of United States presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Morris received his early education in Kenya after which he attended Rhodes University in South Africa. He worked as an advertising copywriter in London before emigrating to the United States in 1968.

His biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award in 1980. After spending 14 years as President Reagan's authorized biographer, he published the national bestseller Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan in 1999.

Morris's other books include Theodore Rex, the second in a projected three-volume chronicle of the life of Theodore Roosevelt, and Beethoven: The Universal Composer. Mr. Morris wrote extensively on travel and the arts for such publications as The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Harper's Magazine.

Edmund Morris lived in New York City and Kent, Connecticut with his wife and fellow biographer, Sylvia Jukes Morris.

Morris died on May 24, 2019 at a hospital in Kent, from a stroke at the age of 78.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

“He advocates ‘an informed patriotism’ based on ‘more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual’.” (2.5 stars)

I was 9 ½ years old when Ronald Reagan left office. My parents loved him, as the Carter presidency was an unmitigated disaster for the middle class. DUTCH is my first book about Reagan. I am glad there are other options out there.
I have really struggled with what to write about DUTCH. I would call it a literary memoir, as it reads more like a character study than a biography. And I am not sure that is a good thing.
The biggest problem with this text is that there is way too much of the author. Mr. Morris made himself a character in the life of Ronald Reagan, and I feel like I read a novel (a well written and an insightful one, I admit) but still, a novel, about the life of Ronal Reagan.
I hated Edmund Morris’ insertion of himself into the story, there are easily 100 (or more) pages of this book where Edmund talks about himself and his made up version of his life. Who picks up a memoir of Ronald Reagan to read a fictional version of the author's life? I saw a writer who said this about DUTCH, “Morris has produced a fiction in which he is the main character, and his life is interspersed with impressions and memories of Reagan.” Sadly, that is a true statement. Morris makes up a fake version of himself, complete with a fake son who is an SDS radical who hates Reagan and disappears into the underground as a result of choices in the sixties. Ridiculous. Easily the first half of this book hinges more on Morris’ fake story, than Reagan’s real one.
Having said that, the second half of this text is better than the first because the fictional Morris disappears more and more, and the real one (who was picked by the Reagans to write Ronald’s biography) takes a back seat.
As mentioned, Morris was a good writer, and there are times that he makes brilliant, compelling, and powerful observations about Ronald Reagan and his greatness. Chapter 37 (“The Shining City”) is a sentimental and beautiful observation of the final months of the Reagan presidency, and is awesome reading. Fiction can reveal great truths, and there are moments where this text achieves that.
DUTCH also induced in me the feeling that most books that deal with the past do, that there “is nothing new under the sun.” Many of the things Reagan dealt with are circling back around, and many of the things he said could have come out of the mouths of leaders since. There were times while reading something Reagan said that I thought Trump or Obama had said the same thing, and they had. Everything old is new again.
Reading over this review is telling, as it mirrors the problem with DUTCH. There is too much “Morris” mentioned.
I will read other books about Reagan. This one did not do the job I hoped it would.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. The author injecting himself into the story as a fictional character was an egotistical and awkward attempt to insult the President. Very cowardly. Once I got my equilibrium after the initial confusing first couple of chapters, it was obvious to me that this book was less to do about Reagan, and more to do with the author's oversized ego.

Mr. Morris wrote a critically acclaimed book about Theodore Roosevelt. After reading this disaster, not sure that I want to invest the time.

[Aaron Million · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is unlike any other presidential biography that I have read. Edmund Morris structured this book in a radical way: implanting a fictionalized version of himself into the first half of the story, then merging that character with his real-life self once Reagan becomes President and eventually asks Morris to be his official biographer. If you are looking for the typical, straight-forward, sometimes dull presidential biography, that is not what you will find here. Whether one likes what Morris has done here or not is, like most things, highly subjective.

Even writing a review of this is not straight-forward! How do you grapple with a fictional character in what is a biography, which is non-fiction and (supposed to be) about real-life people, places, and things? I struggled acclimating to what Morris did, not quite knowing what was or was not true. Morris created an entire person (complete with a career, a divorce, a remarriage, and a son) in the eye of someone who has been around Reagan off-and-on since childhood. I thought that Morris finally abandoned this for the last half of the book, only for him to bring the person back in the final few pages. For me, this did not work. If I want to read fiction, I will read fiction.

Saying all of that, I want to add a few caveats. First, Morris is amazing writer. Despite me not liking his literary decision here, this is still a very well-written book. I have a lot of respect for him after reading his outstanding trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt. All three books were superb. If I was forced to relocate to an island, and could only bring five books with me to re-read perpetually, Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt would be one them. It remains one of the few books that, every time I picked it up, I did not want to put it down. So, I came into this already liking - and expecting a lot - from Morris. Second, Reagan was a notoriously inscrutable character. I am not sure that anyone will ever be able to penetrate the veneer that he cloaked himself in, to try to remove the actor's face that he continually presented to everyone. Morris saw this and thus gave up on attempts to write a standard biography like what he had originally started out doing. You have to give him points for ingenuity! Third, because he did not format this like a typical biography, the reader is spared many of the more mundane minutiae that one often finds in books about presidents. You will not find page after page talking about National Security Council meetings, for instance. And Morris does not get lost in Reagan's re-election campaign (in fact, he spends a grand total of two pages on the entire year of 1984 - that was not a good thing) or political machinations.

Now that I have cleared that part, I want to note that Morris does not disappoint when trying to get to the essence of Reagan. His prose is top-notch as always. An example, from pages 397-398: "His little black box of napkin notes and clippings from newspapers and magazines... acted as a sort of information blender, from which poured a welfare queen with 'eight names, thirty addresses, and twelve Social Security cards', or the nude theaters subsidized by the federal government...". Morris remained remarkably clear-eyed about Reagan, respecting him more and more as the book goes along while constantly pointing out Reagan's curious lack of interest in anyone, his penchant for treating everyone around him liked hired guns, his extreme aloofness to his own children (they rarely appear throughout the book - I sensed that this mirrored how Reagan viewed them as well, people who pop up from time to time but really aren't that important), and his ever-increasing over-reliance on his second wife Nancy.

Of any books that I have read that involve Nancy Reagan in some way, I think Morris handled her best. Sympathetic because she realized that Reagan needed her so she took on a lot of responsibility in managing his free time, his energy, and being his emotional support. She was his fiercest defender by far, oftentimes way too far. But Morris also is critical of her: the ability to stab people in the back, to use them and then toss them aside, to exclude Reagan from anyone else (including his children, it would seem), and to try to control Reagan's schedule based on what her astrologer told her. Sometimes when I think of how the President of the United States was frequently at the mercy of Nancy's zodiac reader, I shudder. In the end I think that Morris felt terrible for her as Alzheimer's took Reagan away from her and placed an enormous burden on her, while also acknowledging that it was her own fault that she was not a sympathetic figure.

You can tell by the end that Morris respects Reagan despite never being able to understand him. In fact he notes multiple times that he generally thought that Reagan didn't really know who he was. From page 543: "Before the door closed I caught a glimpse of him, bespectacled again, writing on another sheet of yellow legal paper. Something about his intent stillness suggested that he had already forgotten who I was, if indeed he ever knew." But he also points out numerous examples of when Reagan simply did not care about an issue or a person. Note this on page 624: "RR's eyes turn flinty and his jaw sets when the subject of AIDS comes up... 'Why is this disease any different from any other disease? I saw a TV snow on AIDS in Africa the other day - they spread it there like the common cold.' However, he waves aside a domestic-policy memo on the subject of compulsory sequestration of AIDS patients as too draconian and too expensive. 'No, not unless the problem gets to be really important'." Really important, huh? That is a good example of Reagan's uninterest in and casual cruelty towards people or issues he did not care about. What an astounding lack of moral leadership.

While not quite at the end of the book, I thought this passage by Morris (page 640) came as close to summing up Reagan as one probably can: "Out of Tampico's ice there grew, crystal by crystal, the glacier that is Ronald Reagan: an ever-thrusting, ever-deepening mass of chill purpose. Possessed of no inner warmth, with no apparent interest save in its own growth, it directed itself toward whatever declivities lay in its path. Inevitably, as the glacier grew, it collected rocks before it, and used them to flatten obstructions; when the rocks were worn smooth they rode up onto the glacier's back, briefly enjoying high sunny views, then tumbled off to become part of the surrounding countryside. They lie where they fell, some cracked, some crumbled: Dutch's lateral moraine. And the glacier sped slowly on."

Grade: C+

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edmund Morris caught a lot of shit for writing this book. Yet, I for one, thought it was one of the best political biographies ever. Reagan was one of those guys defined by public life; he had little use for introspection, personal relationships etc. He was truly most comfortable and at home in the limelight. A quote from the book to illustrate the point:


"Decades before Alzheimer's clouded Reagan's mind, he showed a terrifying lack of human presence. "I was real proud when Dad came to my high school commencement," reports his son, Michael Reagan. After posing for photos with Michael and his classmates, the future president came up to him, looked right in his eyes, and said, "Hi, my name's Ronald Reagan. What's yours?" Poor Michael replied, "Dad, it's me. Your son. Mike."

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is not going to be a way for me to write this review well, so bear with me while I muddle through.

I bought this book a couple of days after Reagan's death in 2004 from Borders in Springfield, Missouri, along with a city guide of San Francisco and a copy of "On the Road." I bought them for the trip to California, and packed them along with my entire collection of Natalie Goldberg and my heartsick copy of "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn." I found that I had wanted to attend Reagan's funeral, and why didn't he die just three weeks later when I could have made a Southern California stop.

Yes, I admired Reagan. I never got the chance to vote for him--my first voting opportunity was Clinton, and I didn't like Bush--but I have to admit that I loved Reagan's personae. I never knew much about his politics; I was eight years old when he took office and sixteen when he left. But he was comforting. And maybe the fact that he was President during those years of my life made him the FDR of my days, it's hard to say.

When I arrived in California I was lucky enough to live in the South Bay at an apartment with a pool and at a location two train stops from Palo Alto's Stanford Theater. That summer Stanford Theater was featuring all of the movies of Ronald Reagan--I know that I saw two, but the only one I remember was "Kings Row." Despite the fact that I was raised on classic movies my parents never watched Reagan's films (I have a strong suspicion it was because they didn't like him as much as I did), so I was seeing him young for the first time, an unnerving experience. I saw the movies and tried to read the book, but the biographer seemed to be over my head, like Henry James or something, and I gave up. I also gave up on Kerouac and picked up "The Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and Goldberg books instead--all that heavy literature depressed me when I was so homesick.

A couple years back and millions of heartbeats later, I tried again, making it about a hundred pages farther than I did the first time. Still blech. The book is written from a fictional premise with facts, something a little hard to deal with when I was sorting out a broken bone and something even more difficult to explain now, but all I can say is, that with the complete concentration I can afford these days, it finally made sense this time. I'm sure my smarter friends would get it in twenty seconds and marvel at my stupidity, or judge its obtuseness, but in the end I'm glad to have read it. I find that I worship Reagan less after doing so, but that I like him more, that I wish in some ways I could be like him while finding myself ashamed by that envy. This book also made me think about comparisons between the Cold War and our current battle with global terrorism. The comparisons are too complicated to discuss here, but I loved making them in my private journals.

The book was mine, but now it's read. There's a problem--most people in this area hate Reagan, and I have to give the book away now. If I give the book away using BookCrossings, it will get destroyed. So it gets the boring fate of the library donation. I hope someone else in the Bay Area has the open mind to read it. I hope someone else in the Bay Area is an Independent.

Good night, Great Communicator, and thank you.

P.S. - Ronald Reagan's final letter to the American public, in which he disclosed his diagnoses of Alzheimer's, was handwritten, in cursive. I found this particularly poignant, and that in a generation someone will have to translate it, even though it's written in English. The cursive facsimile is reproduced in the book courtesy the author, and I was grateful.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by Edmund Morris, author of the monumental biography of Theodore Roosevelt I consider the best biography I've ever read, DUTCH is both a thrill and a disappointment. The magnificent collation of detail and the majestic writing style which made the Roosevelt books so powerful are all here. But, for reasons he reasonably explains, Morris chose to take an unusual approach to this book, one in which he wrote not exactly as himself but as AN Edmund Morris who had grown up with Reagan and watched the key events of his life first-hand, something the real Morris, much younger than Reagan, could not have done. Thus there is a sense of primary access to Reagan's life, even though the early portions of the book are actually based on secondary sources (all rigorously cited). The later portions of the book are based on the real Morris's actual personal access to Reagan and thus are devoid of the fancied false familiarity of the early parts. Reagan gave Morris astonishing access to the presidency and the man who served in that office. This is the fortieth presidential biography I have read, and no other has given such a remarkable day-to-day view of life in the White House and the pressures, operations, and mechanics which make up life as the U.S. president. Morris is, on the whole, a balanced reporter. At times he seems to hold his subject in disdain, yet is generous with praise at other times. What I came away with was a portrait of Ronald Reagan as a far more intelligent man than many give him credit for being, and a man who at the same time allowed his very real vision for America to override many practical matters and considerations, allowing him to be blind at times to real suffering and human need. He seems an uncommonly warm man on the surface, yet one with little depth to his warmth. He was honest, truthful, respectful, diligent, humble, and creative when the situation mattered to him. But there were far too many areas that did not matter to him, not because he was evil, but because he was blind to such areas. Morris has done an extraordinary job of capturing one of the pivotal figures in American history, though his intriguing approach both gives a falsity to the very thing he wanted to show clearly and diverts the reader with spurious moments of false autobiography layered in to create verisimilitude-- the very thing it subverts. DUTCH is a brilliant biography with one central and prominent flaw.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was inspired to read this book about Ronald Reagan, my favorite president in my lifetime, by everything that I had read about Edmund Morris and his exalted biography of President Theodore Roosevelt.

When I first began reading the book, I read the publisher's note and the comments made by numerous people. It was evident that the book was controversial, but I still fully expected to be reading an excellent biography about an excellent president.

You can imagine the depths of my disappointment with the book! With each page, Mr. Morris's dislike, disdain, and disrespect for Ronald Reagan became more and more obvious. He even admitted as much in the book when he states that he doesn't know whether or not he likes the president. Although, in the end, he acknowledges a "love" for the president, his demeaning, belittling, and hurtful adjectives and descriptions of R. Reagan show otherwise.

To think that Mr. Morris was invited by the president to be his official biographer! That was certainly inviting a snake in the grass, "Anguis in Herba" (Morris likes to borrow from foreign languages), into your home, thinking you've invited a good friend in.

Although I won't commit myself to a decision regarding reading more of Edmund Morris's books, I will be very hesitant to ever spend more of my good money on anything authored by him.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, just as a good read, not as a hagiography (it's far from that), or a history book. Obviously, Edmund Morris's approach (fictionalizing Reagan's life with a participatory, made-up narrator based on Morris himself), was offbeat. And he doesn't really seem to like Ronald Reagan very much, which I think was also off-putting to a lot of people (including me, to some extent, it seemed disloyal somehow, since Reagan essentially hired him to write it as an "official" biography and gave him crazy access). But it's really a fascinating story, well told, covering some of the major events of the twentieth century - the war, Communism in Hollywood, the rise of California - in a readable and interesting way. I am pretty much a fiction reader, so maybe that's why this approach appealed to me. But I urge you to give this a try, it's a fairly quick read, for a big book, and an interesting look at history as narrative/biography.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many reviewers have been dismayed that Morris injected himself as a fictional character in the first half of the book. Those that criticize the method as being dishonest and difficult to follow are clearly not paying attention. I suspect that most negative reviewers would prefer to worship at the altar of their perfect President and cannot abide any criticism of their God and his wife.

Morris was allowed unique access to the inner working of the White House and accompanied Reagan's entourage to the US/USSR summit in Reykjavik. He often met personally with Reagan from early in his Presidency until the post-presidential years when Reagan no longer recognized him (or anyone else). This familiarality gives Morris a clearer perspective than many of Reagan's other biographers who usually have a political agenda.

[Bev · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst biography I've read. Morris doesn’t respect President Reagan, in fact shows great disdain for him on nearly every page. It was apparently written for the entertainment generation: it is crafted into screen plays and Saturday Night Live entertainment which means it’s not credible. And Morris deems he is important enough to tell his whole life story simultaneously with Reagan’s. I kept reading it because this is the authorized biographer who was allowed access to all of Reagan’s papers, journals and access to his inner circle for the last three years of his presidency. Morris is bored with his journals, pans his autobiography and in a trip to Geneva to meet Prime Minister Gorbachev for the first time, writes most on his conversation with the younger Ron Reagan. Now I must read Reagan’s autobiography to clear my mind of this book.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read quite a bit of this book several years ago but all I can really remember is having to stop because I found the business with the fictional narrator so weird and confusing. It's like that book The Devil in the White City that everyone loves so much. I can't read stuff like that because I need to have a clear idea of where the research ends and the fancy begins.

Ronald Reagan is definitely one of the most fascinating figures I can think of. Somehow he managed to make quite an impression on my little psyche before I was even eight years old. He figured big in a really cool dream I had a few months ago.

I wish I knew more about this man, and that is why I've got the American Experience episode about him in my Netflix queue.

[Steven · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chapter for chapter, page for page, this is the single daffiest nonfiction work I have ever read from a respected author.

Edmund Morris, author of widely praised books about Theodore Roosevelt, was given a free hand and direct access to prepare a biography of Ronald Reagan, and apparently found himself in over his head. In fact, judging from this weird amalgam of memoir, biography, and melodramatic fiction, Morris lost his mind.
Even Reagan's admirers acknowledged the man's often spooky lack of affect, and his ability to speak utter nonsense with the utmost conviction. Maybe Morris, unable to get a handle on this affable sphynx, suffered a lapse similar to what Miss Quested experienced in the Marabar Caves scene from A Passage to India. At any rate, this Pulitzer-winning historian decided that the best way to tell the story of Ronald Reagan was to make a fictionalized version of Edmund Morris one of the players. The Faux Morris is present at all sorts of events the real Morris never witnessed, and in the most deranged scene it is revealed that the youthful Reagan, while on lifeguard duty, saved the Faux Morris from drowning.

During my time as a newspaper editor, I became aware of a syndrome in which a novice reporter -- otherwise very smart -- would panic and decide that instead of writing a standard news story, instead attempt what he thought was a brilliant new approach that yielded deeper truths than mere pyramid style could contain. I had to talk a couple of these tyros down from the trees and it wasn't pretty, but they eventually realized that they had simply clutched and needed to calm down.

Unfortunately for Edmund Morris, too much money, time and prestige had been invested in Dutch to allow for such a graceful exit, and the book now exists like a crazy relative chained in the attic of an otherwise distinguished career. Fortunately for us, journalist Lou Cannon did the job Morris should have done with President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, and that will have to stand for now.

[Arminius · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. Edmund Morris wrote fantastic books about Theodore Roosevelt so I expected his book on the Great Communicator to be just as good. I like that he pointed out how President Reagan developed his communication skills through his acting career and how he adopted his language to be understandable to the masses. I disliked that the author discussed much of his own trials and tribulations which he encountered while writing this book. If you want to learn about President Reagan's great accomplishments I recommend Dinesh D'Souza's Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This massive book is reflection of the complex and sometimes baffling man that was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan is presented as a man who always was up for whatever life brought to him but often did not know what was coming next. His rural Illinois roots in several Illinois towns and a brief stay in Chicago made Reagan was a reflection of middle America - unassuming, engaging, and hard-working. Reagan grew up in a Christian household, was athletic and enjoyed the arts. Gifted, with intelligence and charisma, he attended Eureka College at a younger age than other students. Possessed with an innate ability to learn in every situation and used his natural talents to sway and motivate others. Reagan's collegiate studies and interests led to a brief career in broadcasting. He easily moved from sportscaster to movie extra, Reagan was a social persona. In time, he became a stalwart studio actor and married a young starlet, Jane Wyman with whom he would have three children (albeit one died in childbirth). In the military, he was assigned to The First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU), the propaganda film production unit of the US Army Air Forces during WWII . Reagan was one of several actors who served through the film-making unit. It was here that Reagan's political knowledge was expanded through what he saw during the war. The atrocities and man's ruthlessness would stay with him throughout the remainder of his life.

The author paints the post-WWII years as a time when Reagan sharpened his political savvy through his leadership in the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) and various other entertainment councils and committees. As SAG President he would oppose the HUAC 'witch hunt' of Communists and their influence. As chairman of the Motion Picture Industry Council (MPIC), he honed his political leadership and negotiation skills. Reagan's political position as staunch liberal would change to moderate Conservative in the late-1940s when he began to appreciate that a strong society needed rules and parameters. He would see his acting career stagnated while his wife's soared. The author likens this period to an actor preparing for a new role. Indeed, the middle-aged actor did hone new skills and remade himself into a social and civic leader.

I must admit that Mr. Morris' writing style was challenging at times but I came to handle it as I read. Nevertheless, it worked especially well when we experience the years of tumult and change that formed the future persona of Reagan. The unpredictable nature of Reagan and how the times shaped his course come across clearly in this section of the book. We feel his doubts, distrust of Communism, hatred of appeasement, living through his divorce from Wyman and being single in the 1950s. Reagan's humor, wit and intelligence carried him though and we see inklings of his future as he looked for a new direction in his life.

The author paints the bulk of 1950s as the as the time when Reagan matured as a leader with grand ambitions and public appeal. With a new wife, Nancy Davis and more children, the family man would now looked for a new life. Publicly, his ideology underwent a drastic change as he moved to the moderate and finally conservative sphere of politics. The interesting part of this change was that Reagan was able to adapt new ideas while preserving his belief of uplifting the working man and empowering the laborer with an ethical resolve to have dignity while fighting for a better future. Ever the politician, Reagan evolved as a speaker for laborer's rights and embracing a brighter tomorrow. he rose to the forefront of the labor world and gained valuable allies in the business world and politics. His faith also was reborn as he studied the bible and became friends with many religious leaders. By the early-1960s, the course for his life was set as he became active in the Republican Party. He stood with Richard M. Nixon while he sought the Office of President in the 1960s.

As Nixon rose in power within the Republican Party in the 1960s, Reagan became the voice of the other side of the Republican Party - reformers. He found a base in California and local leaders encouraged and supported his desire to be the governor of the state. The world of politics was a natural for the skilled orator, negotiator and charismatic man. Reagan was at home in the public eye as the Governor of California. Ever the protector and visionary, Reagan fought for reform in labor, welfare, housing and taxes. His stands were not at the center of the party and many considered him an outsider. But as the 1970s dawned, the 60+ politician cemented his position as governor and won re-election, Reagan looked for the next challenge.

The author dedicates the bulk of the latter part of the book on Reagan's strong sense of decency and devotion to a high set of principles as he sought and eventually won the highest office in the land - the presidency. By the 1970s, reagan was an avowed Christian with strong roots in the teachings of being a noble servant leader. Reagan was the embodiment of what America wanted to reclaim and embrace - strength, decisiveness, and morality. He barely lost the 1976 Republican Party nomination to Ford but won the country's heart. As President Carter stumbled, Reagan waited and planned another presidential run.

The last part of the book deals with the Reagan Presidency and retirement. The late-1970s and beyond witnessed Reagan riding a wave of rebirth, nostalgia and hope, By now the wise and savvy politician was the strong and moral leader that the people sought. After winning the election, President Reagan appeared aloof but in fact was quite conscientious of the needs of the people. His popularity grew as he survived an early-term assassination attempt, The legend grew as he unveiled and implemented his dream to restore 'the chining City" (America) to its intended state of strength. With his bold concept of Reaganomics, Reagan prepared to guide the nation though a recession and to reclaim its place as the world leader. His respect and support of the laborer formed the basis of his labor reforms. While he was a stalwart supporter of the military he also saw the need for arms control and eventually, arms reduction. The author dedicates many pages to Reagan's role in the arms control and overseeing the death of the USSR and the dismantling of its military. Reagan's tact and diplomatic skills kept America strong in the face of many military involvements in Latina America, Asia and Africa. Much time is spent of Reagan's meetings, discussions and negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the dying USSR. In spite of a cancer scare, Reagan remained the strong leader as his second term winded down. During his second term, Reagan steered the country through the Challenger disaster, the Beirut bombings, the hostage taken in Lebanon, the Contra arms deal debacle, the disarmament talks with the USSR, the collapse of Communism, and tax reform while dealing with several personal issues. Reagan battled cancer as did his wife, Nancy. Through it all, Reagan's legacy took many hits and his last several months of his eight (8) years in office. The author pulls no punches here as he portrays Reagan as tired, withdrawn, and aging. Still, the man had one last victory, overseeing the fall of Communism and the 'evil empire' (USSR). The author wraps up the book by stating that Reagan's legacy as America's man moral leader and passionate courage. Dubbed 'the great communicator,' Reagan was never one to shy away from the battle but always strategic. He wore the mantle of leadership and re-energized and empowered "the shining city" (the nation) for 8+ years. Reagan stated he had succeeded on filling his promise of making the nation safer and stronger. For me, this was the best part of the book because the historical man is fleshed out by the sharing of thoughts and dreams.

As he adjusted to life after the presidency, Reagan's faculties began to fail him and he struggled to maintain the role he once mastered. He made a handful appearances, including a medal ceremony and Nixon's funeral. By 1993, the diagnosis of dementia confirmed that Reagan was not well and frail. In closing, The author treated the deterioration of the once great leader with respect. The author recalls his visits with Reagan from 1993 to 1998 and sensed the rush of death. Ronald Reagan eventually died on June 5, 2004, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease for nearly a decade. Reagan is remembered as a leader who surrounded himself with a group of reliable advisers and experts but always had the last say. He spoke from the heart but always used his head. Throughout his two terms ion office, there was no doubt he was the powerful man with a vision. This was a wonderful book about an important 20th century man and leader.

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly controversial not just for his "fair and balanced" approached to the much revered president but also for the author's literary technique.

The technique of inserting the author into the story in a sort of Dante-esque quality is a little odd for a modern biography. But Morris could be excused because he was given unprecedented access to Reagan while he was running the country. In the later chapters when Morris actually "was there" watching history unfold, he offers an intriguing perspective to the inner workings of government and how Reagan ran the executive office like a Turkish pasha.

Many people were aghast at Morris describing the president as "somewhat of an airhead" which was jarring to besotted fans of the late president. But overall, Morris admired Reagan enough to write this memoir with "warts and all." Reagan was somewhat aloof and people close to him readily admitted (including his children) that they really never knew him. It is no surprise that Nancy Reagan hated this book (though I doubt she read it), but it is surprising that his kids (except for Michael) claim this "memoir" was an accurate depiction of their father.

Edmund Morris is probably one of my top three non-fiction writers (next to Robert Caro and Ron Chernow). This is one of my favorite books.

[Vheissu · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a few reviewers have misunderstood and under-appreciated this "memoir," just as so many, myself in particular, misunderstood and under-appreciated Ronald Reagan. I despised the president and still hold him in contempt for his many gruesome mistakes, not least of which is his responsibility for the unnecessary death of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut.

Still, Morris' magnificent historical fiction made me altogether more sympathetic toward both the man and the politician, if not a cool-aid swilling enthusiast. The prose that Morris employs to depict the man-myth is the most beautiful he has ever penned, elevating my initial 3-stars rating of the book to a full-flown 5.

I can understand why uncritical admirers of the late president are offended by this story. Take note, True Believers, that an unrepentant cynic such as myself had his notions bent and reforged by the author's obvious love and admiration for one of the most enigmatic persons in U.S. history.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the actual Biography and thought the author had some good insights. However, it felt like it was as much about the fictional narrator than Ronald Reagan. I didn't know until after I had finished that more than two thirds of "first person" accounts were fictional. I didn't enjoy them when reading, and felt the book would have been much better if they had been left out.

[Marlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a bit difficult to read. The author was trying to be clever, but I sometimes felt like it was an autobiography rather than a biography of President Reagan. However, there certainly are some interesting insights into Ronald Reagan.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book as read by the author unabridged.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was only 8 years old when Ronald Reagan left office, so I felt like I was rediscovering the era of my childhood while reading this book. RR was such an imposing figure upon my imagination, and I remember sadly watching as Alzheimer's slowly took his faculties and he dwindled away into a shadow of what he once was as I grew into an adult. I definitely learned much about twentieth-century American history, and especially about Dutch himself. The best part about this memoir is the author's ability to insert himself into the narrative (which was highly controversial since he basically made himself a semi-fictional character in this biography), but it works. This is a much more literary biography than I've read before, with beautiful, haunting descriptions and creative narrative touches throughout, including, appropriately enough for the actor-turned president, some script-style sections. The only drawback, in my opinion, is that I think the author expects the reader to be more familiar with the time period that is covered, and there were many cultural and historical allusions or references that were unfamiliar to me. Perhaps, though, it just means I need to brush up on my 20th Century history! All in all, I rate this as a fantastic book, and well worth the six months it took me to finally finish (of course, I had to read the footnotes, too-- they are almost as interesting as the bio itself!).

[David Peppin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. It really took a lot of pages to say very little, but I do feel like I understand RR better as a human than before I read the book. On the other hand, not much attention was given to the political side of his life. The fictional characters didn't bother me that much, since I was aware of the situation before reading the book. It also seemed to be pretty fair. I know it seemed to some people to be a bit rough on the President, but I think the author was being honest in his assessment. Personally, I found RR quite likeable.

It isn't a biography, it's a memoir of the author's experience of the president, so it works on that level. The actual biographical information could have fit into a 20-page book. Altogether I think I may have liked the book.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan at the time of publication in 1999 was thought to be a literary flop by Pulitzer Prize winning author Edmund Morris, but nevertheless, I was intrigued. As the book opens, it is confusing because the author has inserted himself as a fictional character born around the time of Ronald Reagan and as their paths cross later they become friends. However, in this way he is able to convey the early years of Reagan in interesting ways to bring many of the aspects of Reagan's journey to life. After being chosen by Reagan as his official biographer, Morris spent much of his second term with the President so Morris appears, now as himself, at many State functions. All in all, I found the book intriguing but if one is looking for a lot of insight into Ronald Reagan, it's not there but that may be the point.

[Helmut Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a biographer is hired to write about a current president, he has a problem if he is not sure about his attitude towards the man. This book is a kind of warning shot. Don't accept that kind of assignment. The book took years to be finished and reach the market. The people who had hired him were then already out of office, some even in disgrace. Morris did his best to be fair, objective, and true to his own honest thinking.
The result is an ambiguous study about an enigmatic man. It is not a study of the presidency, but of the life. That means that the first decades are quite boring. The book only picks up speed when the man formerly nicknamed Dutch enters politics. All in all, this is an interesting and original, though not fully satisfactory effort.

[Linda Appelbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an audio book for me and I am not sure I like a biography of an American written and read by someone so completely British! That aside, I'm not so sure I have a better knowledge of Ronald Reagan now than I did before except that he was a very morla, black and white kind of person, stubborn, was once a life guard and saved many lives, really had no warm relationship with his children and was utterly worshiped, protected and controlled by Nancy. It just seems that with all the access Edmund Morris had to Reagan he could have had more insight, more details and less flowery descriptive language. It was sad to see the President slip into dementia/alzsheimers so quickly.

[Rebecca The Files of Mrs. E, · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a very different approach to writing a biography. Morris essentially invented a character of himself and inserted it into Reagan's life. Overall, it made the book a bit more interested and added a color that some biographies seem to be missing. My only complaint is that he spent so much time talking about "himself" when it wasn't even really himself. It just seemed odd. But this book does give a great background of Reagan's overall personal life. He doesn't go into as much detail on issues of Reagan's presidency or his entire political philosophy but it isn't meant to be that kind of book.

[Literary Redhead · Rating 2 out of 5]

This highly anticipated biography was the book that destroyed the author’s reputation as an impeccable historian. In DUTCH, he introduced himself as a character, impairing the sense of objective scholarship he’d brought to previous works. A shame! I had been looking forward to his scholarly take on Reagan, one of our best and in some ways most enigmatic Presidents. Even Nancy, to whom Ronnie wrote love letters when she was in the same room, said he had a reserve he revealed to no one.

[Granny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really like the author's style. Contains some profanity. I agree with some other reviewers that there was too much focus on the negative.

[Shawna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author’s fictional insertion of himself into the life of Reagan was just too confusing. I never knew if what I was reading actually happened.

[Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve known of Edmund Morris’s “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan” for many years. Morris was granted unprecedented access to Reagan’s going ons as president. This was, and remains, the only authorized biography from an incumbent president. However, Morris struggled with his primary subject and leaked comments about Morris’s thoughts on Reagan immediately clouded the initial reception of the book. Compounded by a lengthy writing process, delayed releases, and an audacious and wholly new take on the biography genre itself, Dutch was met with mixed to negative reviews upon release in 1999. But is this book, written by one of the most lauded, Pulitzer Prize winning writers utilizing some of the most innovative techniques ever found in a biography, actually any good? Eh. Morris through this book doesn’t appear to hold Reagan in high regard. Which is alright (plenty of biographies are written by writers or historians who dislike or even abhor their primary subject), but what makes “Dutch” a frustrating read is the unreliability of the factual text beyond opinion. That’s because Morris, having had great difficulty writing the book and being unable to find any semblance of depth in Reagan as an individual, decided to insert himself as a character and create a fictitious backstory for himself as a longtime friend of Reagan’s who interacts with him at various moments throughout his life. I believe there’s a way this innovative approach could have been done well, and perhaps utilizing endnotes or citations throughout more extensively could have better discerned what was real and what was not, but Morris muddies the factual picture by even including fictional citations for his made up background and interactions with, say, Reagan as a lifeguard. The writing itself, though, is exemplary. If you had no idea who Reagan was, this could read almost as an inverted John Irving novel. Morris as well ironically leans into tropes associated with biopics and has pages written as if it’s a script for a movie, even including camera movement, scene transitions, and narration. All this could make for a wildly original approach to biography writing, but it’s all made frustrating by the sheer volume of fictional elements. Ultimately, the book as a reading experience is very well done and Morris’s writing is top notch, but this is one of the few biographies I’ve finished where I’m unsure if I’ve learned anything at all about the subject matter in question. Despite this labeled as a “memoir,” Reagan remains nothing more than a shallow yes man, seemingly incapable of introspection whose motivations are purely image based. Which, perhaps, is true and a wholly accurate picture of the man. But again, the presentation of such, as ambitious as it may have been, makes this difficult to assess fairly. Morris took an enormous, imaginative swing here that ultimately missed.

[Bill F.]

When Edmund Morris' "Dutch" was published ten years ago, it created a firestorm within the historical and political community. Morris - a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt - had created a fictional character to accompany Ronald Reagan and to help tell his story. At the time, I remember being shocked that a writer of Morris' credibility would 'stoop' to such a tactic. I refused to read the book at the time.

Over the years, though, I've been intrigued by it and often thought of finally picking it up. I'm glad I finally did. For one thing, Morris' publisher does a far better job than the author ever did during that tumultuous book tour ten years ago in explaining why he used this tactic. Morris was announced as Reagan's 'official biographer' by the White House in 1985. Morris was given unprecedented access to Reagan throughout his second term - with the notable exception of when the Iran-Contra scandal exploded. Even then, though, Morris was privy to far more than most biographers.

A few years into the project, however, Morris came to a startling revelation: he no more knew Reagan the man after spending nearly three years with him than he did when he started the project. Reagan was impenetrable to biography. There was so little intellectual curiosity in Reagan's mind, and so much 'acting' that knowing the real Reagan - indeed, if there was one - was impossible. It was while trying to figure out how to write the biography with this major roadblock that Morris stumbled upon the idea of creating a fictional character. This character would be able to color in the blank spots on the pages of Reagan's life. Granted, it would no longer be biography in the strict sense of the word. Undoubtedly, the author's own hypotheses and opinions about aspects of Reagan's life - and why he did what he did - would make total objectivity impossible.

I'm not sure if Morris was right to do it this way, but he was right about one thing: it works. Dutch is an amazing book. The fictionalized character really does add tremendously to the book as a whole. But where it really helps is in the pre-presidential years. All of the quotes in the book from characters other than Morris' fictional one are true: they were gotten by Morris through years of research and interviews. Nothing in the story is 'fiction' in so far as everything everybody says in the book is something they really said to Morris, or that he really overheard during his three-plus years shadowing Reagan around the White House.

There were three 'wow' moments in the book for me: facts that I never knew, and that by themselves make the book a worthwhile read.

First, the assassination attempt. By now, we all know that Reagan was far closer to death than we had ever been led to believe. In conversations with the lead emergency room surgeon that saved Reagan's life, and with Reagan's lead Secret Service agent that day, Morris reveals that a single right turn was the difference between Reagan living and a Bush Administration in 1981. At the moment that John Hinkley fired his shots at Reagan, one bullet hit the presidential limousine's armored right-rear panel. In doing so, it changed shape and became a tiny high-speed circular "saw blade"-like object that spun into Reagan's chest with such surgical precision that there was no apparent entry wound.

Indeed, as Jerry Parr - Reagan's lead security agent - threw Reagan onto the floor of the car and screamed at the driver, "Haul ass! Let's get out of here!", Reagan felt tremendous pain in his chest and said, "Jerry, get off, I think you've broken one of my ribs." Parr took one look at Reagan's mouth and saw that he was coughing up blood. Parr, too, believed that Reagan had punctured something internally. Not sure whether he was looking at a world-wide conspiracy, Parr's training took hold. He grabbed the car radio and lied to the agent in the car behind, telling him "Rawhide not hurt" using Reagan's code name. This was to throw off anyone in the area eavesdropping on the Secret Service frequency.

With that done, Parr made the key move that would save Reagan's life: he made a split second decision to redirect the motorcade [which was heading back to the White House] to George Washington University Hospital instead. Had he not done so, Reagan's physicians told Morris the President would most certainly have died. As it was, getting him to the emergency room as quickly as Parr did almost wasn't enough. The treating physicians assumed the President was suffering from a punctured lung, caused by a broken rib. It was only when a nurse lifted Reagan's left arm to insert an IV line that she saw a neat slit on the side of Reagan's chest open up. "Oh-oh, he's been shot!" she screamed. Reagan - still conscious - looked stunned when he heard this. Reagan would tell Morris that it was only then that he realized he was dying.

In the end, Reagan's incredible physical health pre-assassination attempt saved his life. Because he was in such good shape, and his chest muscles like those of a 40-year old, his body was able to withstand the trauma.

The second 'wow' moment in the book concerns the controversial visit by Reagan to a Nazi burial ground in Bitburg in 1985. I could never understand how a White House as incredibly detailed in planning as the Reagan administration was could have allowed him to accept an invitation by Helmut Kohl to tour a site that held the remains of Hitler's SS troops. Well, there is a very simple explanation. When Mike Deaver went to Bitburg to advance-scout the cemetery, snow blanketed the graves and their stone markers. Deaver could not see the markers. Had he been able to, he would have clearly seen "SS" on the many graves. While you might think he could have brushed the snow off a few of them, but that is hindsight talking. Deaver joked to Kohl, "Will any of these graves embarrass my President?" Kohl's protocol chief reacted defensively saying, "You think maybe Mengele is buried there?" With that, Deaver left. Had he visited a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later - when there was no snow - the whole embarrassing episode could have been avoided.

The final 'wow' moment concerns the weeks after the Iran-Contra scandal broke. Aides became quite alarmed at how disoriented Reagan appeared. New Chief of Staff Howard Baker was stunned by the deterioration in Reagan's mental acuity.

So alarmed was Baker that on March 2, 1987, before lunch in the Cabinet room, Baker and his aides purposely positioned their chairs so that they would be able to observe Reagan literally from all angles. Prior to that lunch, Baker's assistant, James Cannon, wrote an emergency transition paper to set in motion the invocation of the 25th Amendment [Presidential Disability] if Baker and his aides found Reagan to be "disoriented" at that lunch. As it happened, Regan was lucid and "on his game" throughout the lunch. Baker shelved the position paper and the 25th Amendment.

In conclusion, if you haven't read Dutch, do so. While Morris became a little too close to Reagan to truly be objective, the narrative is wonderful and the details extraordinary.