It is late 1932, come Christmas time. A young man, Ronald Reagan, is visiting Springfield, Illinois where his father Jack is running a shoe store to maintain what he can of an income for the family. It is the very dark days of the United States in what becomes the Great Depression. This is the moment when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the disabled governor of New York, has been elected president. But it won't be until March that he takes office.
Everything is dire, and we know that the banks are going to fail. So there is no prosperity anywhere. And yet, Ronald Reagan records later what he saw of his father deeply, deeply hurting—and he cried.
I welcome a man who's told this story and all the others in his new book Reagan: His Life and Legend, the author Max Boot.
Max and I have history. Twenty years ago, Max was at the Wall Street Journal and he visited Iraq and came back and reported to me. So it's a great pleasure to welcome him to this show after all these years he's devoted to Ronald Reagan, away from his family, and now he gets to talk about it.
Jack and Ronald Reagan in that store that Reagan describes as a hole in the wall—what were Reagan's thoughts? Who was Jack? And what do we need to know about his father?
Watch the full interview above, or listen to an audio version below:
LINKS:
CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor on YouTube
Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot on Amazon
The John Batchelor Show on Apple Podcasts:
The opinions expressed on this website and on The John Batchelor Show are those of John Batchelor and guests, and not those of CBS News.
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