In his foreword to Reagan, In His Own Hand, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz recalls how, as President, Reagan once approved a foreign-policy speech Shultz was about to deliver but then added, “Of course, if I were giving that speech, it would be different.” The text, he opined to an abashed Shultz, had been written to be read in the New York Times, not to be spoken aloud. Flipping through the manuscript, he penciled in a few changes and marked out the section that contained, or should contain, the “story.” Nothing of substance was altered, but, writes Shultz, “I saw that he had changed the tone of my speech completely.”

Reagan’s interest in maintaining a continuous arc of interest explains the lengths to which he went to avoid seeming to read his speeches. This, he felt, disturbed the sense of spontaneous thought that was essential to gaining a listener’s attention. The editors provide a vivid vignette of his technique on the campaign trail, where Teleprompters were not in use. Reagan painstakingly transferred his texts onto 4″-by– 6″ index cards, abbreviating in large block letters. The cards were then placed in the side pocket of his suit, out of sight as he strode to the podium, his arms swinging jauntily. Only as he waved at the audience with one hand did he slide the cards onto the podium with the other.

Reading itself was a challenge. Reagan’s contact lenses were for distance, and he learned to remove one of them just before he arrived at a speaking engagement. The right eye read the cards while the left eye read the audience. As the editors suggest, “Reagan’s speech system gave the appearance of being casual and spontaneous, while in reality his speeches had the cold precision of any carefully researched and typed speech manuscript.”

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