Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian finally went to Grosvenor Square and took this picture of the new statue of President Reagan which has now joined statues of Presidents Eisenhower and Roosevelt (that's Franklin, not Teddy) and the memorial to the Eagle Squadron.

Tory Historian must admit to chickening out of attending the unveiling ceremony this morning, though invited. The excuse: far too many people, far too much security and unlikely to be able to see anything, not even Condoleezza Rice. However, a visit to Grosvenor Square is due soon and an own photograph will be posted. In the meantime, here are two stories with pictures: Fox News and the Independent.

The biggest of all: on March 30, 1981 there was an attempt to assassinate President Reagan, which very nearly succeeded. The two pictures of the security services in action and Reagan being hustled off into a car, thence to a hospital, do not give the full story - he was far more seriously wounded than anyone, including him, realized at first.

There was a moment of high comedy when Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that he was in charge until the Vice-President, George H. W. Bush could get back to Washington DC. In actual fact the Secretary of State comes below the Vice-President, the Speaker of the House (Tip O'Neill) and the President pro tempore of the Senate (J. Storm Thurmond). But details like that were not going to stop Haig. In any case, the Veep flew back and Reagan recovered remarkably quickly, given that his lung had been punctured.

There is a wonderful, though unsubstantiated story of Reagan being wheeled to the operating theatre and him saying with his usual impish grin to the surgeon: "I hope you are a Republican." The surgeon is supposed to have replied: "Mr President, today we are all Republicans." Si non e vero, e ben trovato.

One interesting aspect of that attempt, the first any American President had actually survived, is not generally discussed, and that is the effect it had on Tecumseh's Curse. Tory Historian remembers reading about that curse, supposedly put upon President William Harrison by the brother of the defeated Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, in an early edition of Ripley's Believe it or Not, which enumerated all the presidents elected in the year with 0 at the end (that is, every twenty years) who died in office starting with Harrison, elected in 1840 only to die in 1841. The book had been published in 1930 and the section on Tecumseh's Curse with the portentous: 1940 ????? As we know, the man elected in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt, did die in office, as did the man elected in 1960, John F. Kennedy. But not the man elected in 1980, who survived that assassination attempt or the man elected, in 2,000, George W. Bush. I think we can assume that by surviving Reagan broke the curse.

Having spent so long on the Reagan story Tory Historian feels that the other anniversaries, some bad like the assassination of Airey Neave MP, the death of the Queen Mother, some good like the ending of the Rosenberg trial with them being found guilty of espionage and some simply hilarious like John Major climbing on his famous soap box during the 1992 election campaign, deserve separate postings.

Certainly one can argue as one reader did very forcefully and Tory Historian somewhat less so, that Lincoln was not in any real sense a conservative. There can be no such argument about the fortieth President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

Tory Historian is fully aware that a couple of Reagan quotes went up on this blog very recently but this story is not a very well known one and is worth repeating.

It comes from a book already mentioned in a previous posting: John O’Sullivan’s “The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister” and describes an episode that took place in 1984, when Reagan was over in France for the 40th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

For some reason, hard to discern now, the American President who had been the first to be called a cowboy and a bully by the West Europeans who were sheltering under the NATO umbrella was temporarily quite popular with the French government and with President Mitterand.

Here is the story from O’Sullivan’s book. To understand it fully one must remember that Reagan had volunteered for the US Army six years before the outbreak of World War II but because of poor eyesight and deafness in one year was assigned to making films for the armed forces at the outbreak of hostilities (I suspect, that means 1941).

Later that day [of Reagan’s address to the veterans], Evan Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador to Paris, brought the president some heartwarming news. The French government had decided to award him a decoration. Galbraith had not been told exactly what decoration; he thought it might be the Croix de Guerre.

“The Croix de Guerre,” said Reagan, looking distinctly upset. “I couldn’t possibly accept that. That’s for bravery. All I did in the war was to fly a desk.” He asked Galbraith to find out if it were true and to solve the problem. Some time later the ambassador returned with the good news that the decoration was the Legion d’Honneur. But Reagan was still not quite satisfied. What was the citation? What were they giving him the honour for?

“For statesmanship,” replied Galbraith.

“Oh, statesmanship!” said Reagan and relaxed. “I can play that.”