Reagan letters up for sale

Press, 19 September 1985, Page 18

Reagan letters up for sale

By

ARNOLD ZEITLIN

of Associated Press NZPA-AP Boston A mail-order catalogue of President Reagan’s letters and notes includes a speech listed at ?U530,000 ($56,400) that Mr Reagan edited when he was Governor of California, one of 114 items the seller calls the first look at the “great communicator” at work.

Most of the catalogue’s items are originals of notes Reagan composed, then sent to secretaries for typing, such as this undated letter listed at SUS6SO ($1222) that was written in pencil to a child identified only as Cindy: "Thank you for my valentine and thank you for being concerned about keeping California clean and beautiful. All of us up here in Sacramento are going to do everything we have to do to get rid of smog and all the other things that are spoiling the state. I know it can’t be done all at once, but I believe I can promise you that by the time you are in high school, things will be very different.”

Mr Reagan wrote other letters between 1967 and 1978 to correspondents ranging from celebrities to disappointed job seekers and on subjects from pornography to politics to football.

“This collection constitutes a first exposure of a body of Reagan’s writing,” said Charles Sachs, aged 52, owner of Scriptorium, a Beverly Hills, California, gallery selling the material. “It gave me an insight into the man that I didn’t have.” If Mr Sachs sells all the items at catalogue prices, he would gross ?U5168,650 ($317,062). He said catalogues still were being mailed and declined to comment on sales. The SUS3O,OOO speech, typed but edited in Mr Reagan’s hand, would be a record sale for the work of a living President, said Mr Sachs. It was delivered January 16, 1968, to the Economic Club of New York. The letters came from the collection of Kathy Randall Davis, Mr Reagan’s private secretary when he

was governor, Mr Sachs said. She wrote a 1970 book, “What’s He Really Like?” based on some of the letters.

A Boston-area collector made a catalogue available to the Associated Press. In its introduction, a Boston manuscript specialist Kenneth W. Rendell, who helped demonstrate two years ago that purported diaries of Adolf Hitler were forged, wrote that the collection showed the President as an articulate, well organised creator of much of the rhetoric which commentators have frequently attributed to his aides and speech writers. In an interview, Mr Rendell said: “There hasn’t been any collection of this sort of any President offered for sale. It’s a unique thing in the autograph field to get such a cross-section of letters.” Mr Reagan drafted some letters on scrap paper, including a letterhead from the West Coast Latvian song festival. They went to such celebrities as George Halas, owner of the Chicago Bears

pro football team, Jack Warner, the film studio owner, George Murphy, an acting chum of Mr Reagan’s, and several actors, Betsy Drake, Nick Adams and Chuck Connors. Many responded to queries from ordinary constituents. Mr Reagan signed some letters “Dutch,” a name he used only for old friends, said Mr Sachs. Letters to Hollywood colleagues and politicians he signed “Ron” or “Ronnie.” Mr Sachs said Mr Reagan has been interested in communicating with his public since his days as an actor. “I know for a fact the pattern has continued in the White House,” he said. “When he goes home, as therapy and relaxation, he communicates without interruption with his constituency.

“He’s doing what he did as an actor. He communicates with his fans.”

In an April 14, 1967, letter to a Mary Ann Banks, who complained about his proposal to institute tuition at state colleges, Mr Reagan, who as President was

accused by critics of reducing Federal loans to college students, Wrote:

“I was just about your age when I made the same decision (going to college), and thanks to a scholarship and college loan fund, it was possible for me to go and graduate. “Let me assure you I oppose any plan for tuition that does not provide scholarships and help for students who don’t have the funds.* That letter is listed at SUS2SOO ($4700).

Now in the midst of a Federal income tax reform fight, Mr Reagan wrote on July 12, 1967, in a SUSSOO ($940) letter: “We are exploring ways of closing loopholes through which some are escaping their fair share of the tax load.” Mr Sachs said he was not a great fan of Mr Reagan, “but I felt a warmth and a sensitivity in reading these letters”. ’

“His mind, in an ideological way, is quite tidy. After reading these letters, I’m going to sleep with the lights out.”