REAGAN, Ronald. Typed letter signed (“Ron”), to Clarence E. “Sandy” Sandstrome, Los Angeles, 27 June 1977. 3 pages, 4to, personal stationery.
REAGAN, Ronald. Typed letter signed (“Ron”), to Clarence E. “Sandy” Sandstrome, Los Angeles, 27 June 1977. 3 pages, 4to, personal stationery. “I’ve never been able to understand anyone who could actually, down in his soul, want” to be President Reagan reacts with a mixture of anger and conciliation to a fellow Republican who criticized him for challenging President Ford in the divisive 1976 GOP convention. Reagan tells Sandstrome that his “first reaction to your letter was to throw it in the waste basket, or write ‘go to h—l’ on it and send it back....You decided that I sought (to the detriment of the party) the nomination for a personal reason, meaning, I suppose, lust for power, ambition, or whatever. But what grounds did you have for such a decision? Did you offer me a chance to state my case?” Reagan claims he never sought the presidency out of ambition, but only out of a sense of duty, to step up against inadequate aspirants for the office. “I’ve never been able to understand anyone who could actually, down in his soul, want that job,” he says. “Do you know that I prayed Richard Nixon would not offer the vice-presidency to me when Agnew resigned? And prayed again that Jerry Ford wouldn’t offer it when he became President?” He supported Ford, but grew disillusioned when he “started down the same old deficit spending path...Détente became a one-way street, leading to the present Russian position of near superiority. It looked as if one of a motley crew of Democratic hopefuls would win in November—and one did.” The 1976 convention in Kansas City was probably the last real convention in American political history—one that was not an infomercial, and the victor was in doubt until the end. But the conservative energy that Reagan’s candidacy produced ultimately carried him to the nomination and the presidency four years later. The letter also includes, in a conciliatory gesture, a statement by Reagan for Sandstrome to use in his annual Fourth of July “Let Freedom Ring” commemoration.
REAGAN, Ronald. Typed letter signed (“Ron”), to Clarence E. “Sandy” Sandstrome, Los Angeles, 27 June 1977. 3 pages, 4to, personal stationery.
REAGAN, Ronald. Typed letter signed (“Ron”), to Clarence E. “Sandy” Sandstrome, Los Angeles, 27 June 1977. 3 pages, 4to, personal stationery. “I’ve never been able to understand anyone who could actually, down in his soul, want” to be President Reagan reacts with a mixture of anger and conciliation to a fellow Republican who criticized him for challenging President Ford in the divisive 1976 GOP convention. Reagan tells Sandstrome that his “first reaction to your letter was to throw it in the waste basket, or write ‘go to h—l’ on it and send it back....You decided that I sought (to the detriment of the party) the nomination for a personal reason, meaning, I suppose, lust for power, ambition, or whatever. But what grounds did you have for such a decision? Did you offer me a chance to state my case?” Reagan claims he never sought the presidency out of ambition, but only out of a sense of duty, to step up against inadequate aspirants for the office. “I’ve never been able to understand anyone who could actually, down in his soul, want that job,” he says. “Do you know that I prayed Richard Nixon would not offer the vice-presidency to me when Agnew resigned? And prayed again that Jerry Ford wouldn’t offer it when he became President?” He supported Ford, but grew disillusioned when he “started down the same old deficit spending path...Détente became a one-way street, leading to the present Russian position of near superiority. It looked as if one of a motley crew of Democratic hopefuls would win in November—and one did.” The 1976 convention in Kansas City was probably the last real convention in American political history—one that was not an infomercial, and the victor was in doubt until the end. But the conservative energy that Reagan’s candidacy produced ultimately carried him to the nomination and the presidency four years later. The letter also includes, in a conciliatory gesture, a statement by Reagan for Sandstrome to use in his annual Fourth of July “Let Freedom Ring” commemoration.
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