Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39686 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-08-11
• Running time: 59 minutes

Amazon.com
Taped on January 14, 1980The wish was father to the thought: instead of asking Reagan conventionally worded questions about his candidacy, as he had done with Messrs. Dole, Anderson, and Crane, Buckley addressed his guest (without advance warning) as if the inauguration had already taken place: "I should like to begin by asking President Reagan: What would you do if, say, one afternoon you were advised that a race riot had broken out in Detroit?" Reagan: "Well, I would be inclined to say that that was a problem for the local authorities in Detroit, unless those local authorities were unable to control the situation." A discussion full of substance--on topics ranging from Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia to the way government bonds should be issued to the still-ongoing energy crisis to the still-high unemployment--but also a delicious dress rehearsal: Buckley: "Mr. President, the CIA has complained to you that it cannot discharge some of the recent directives that the National Security Council has given it as a result of its having been hamstrung by a number of provisions insisted on by Senator Church three or four years ago. How would you handle that dilemma?" Reagan: "Why, I'm surprised that they're complaining, because one of the first things I did when I took office was ask Congress to repeal those restrictions that were put on by Senator Church." Summary by Firing Line staff.

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Customer Reviews

Presidential Candidate Reagan visits William Buckley; and President Elect Obama is Taking Notes

"I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this."


So began Ronald Reagan's first public address to the nation in the Autumn of 1964. So was the nature of the man: forthright, self-assured and honest to a fault. In 1964, Ronald Reagan (see: In the Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed) was merely an actor; and 16 years later, on January 14, 1980, he was on the set of Firing Line - only months from becoming America's 40th president - meeting with the host, William F. Buckley (see: The Reagan I Knew), for one of the most stimulating and enchanting hours of television to date.

Hard as it is to believe, there was a time when Ronald Reagan was best addressed as "Governor Reagan." But there was such a time when Governor Ronald Reagan's ongoing candidacy for the US presidency was thought immeasurably improbable; a time when the farsighted minds and furrowed brows at the Republican National Committee counted him out by counting in fours - each presidential electoral term.

With the self-afflicted bloodbath of the Nixon Administration only six years behind them, Republican realists confessed a probable defeat in 1980, and admitted the Democratic National Committee would virtually own the White House for at least one full generation. The Republican talking points were simple and defeatist: it's a time of transition, we're rebuilding our party, and so on.... Governor Reagan, the Republican candidate for the White House during the 1979-1980 election cycle would, of course, have none of it; and so suggested his confident smile.

In January of 1980, William F. Buckley extended an invitation to candidate Reagan to appear on his weekly current affairs programme, 'Firing Line.' Some of the very best repartee of the middle to late 20th century occurred on the set of Warren Steibel's creation. Buckley was always brilliant, always entertaining; but in his wisdom, he made the program, and the guests who appeared on his program, if not always brilliant in his reflecting illumination, at least entertaining.

This meeting of minds was to be of a benefit for both participants, as it was not a secret that William F. Buckley would have awoken rather gleefully to understand that the Carter Administration had been truncated at the end of term one. And though Mr. Buckley's interview is not of the confrontational kind to which we're accustomed, it is, I think, still of some value to witness a conversation between two gentlemen of similar cordial customs.

Host Buckley makes a further change to his interviewing technique by tossing out the prosaic Q&A style of questioning and, instead, posing questions to a PRESIDENT Reagan, assuming he's already arrived at his rendezvous with destiny.

The first question asked by Buckley is a hot one. It deals with race, rioting, and police engagement. It is all a supposition, and all occurring in the city of Detroit. Asks Mr. Buckley: "In such a case, what would you be apt to do, Mr. President?"

Without a pause, Reagan answers: "Well, I would be inclined to say that [this issue] was a problem for the local authorities in Detroit..."

And there, without equivocation, is the Reagan we know. Not quoting Article 10, from Bill of Rights, but understanding its practical implications and knowing the value of the originalist's intent. While it's important to have a president who knows his Bills, his Constitution, his Declaration, his Doctrine, his Proclamation and his Pledge, it's twice as nice to have a president who knows what those documents mean, and how to make use of their value in a contemporary USA.

Candidate Reagan then goes on to explain that Federal Government involvement - when not required; when not requested - can be as big a problem as when Federal Government is required and not received: a sentiment found living in the marrow of his conservative philosophy; and one that found voice very early in his political transformation.

The finest point of Buckley's interview with Reagan is a question that seems drawn from a parallel universe only slightly ahead of our own. It is an hypothetical posed to the presumed President Reagan, and a near perfect primer for term number one:

WFB: Mr. President, yesterday a union of postal employees went on a nationwide strike. Now I know you well enough to know that your instinctive answer would be "How can you tell"?" [Laughter] Having got past that, what would be your official policy toward a strike by a federal and municipal employees?

REAGAN: I have thought for a long time that by law they should not be allowed to strike. Government is not the same as private business. Government cannot close down the assembly line, and isn't it significant that when government employees first began to unionize, and they had the support of organized labor but then organized labor supported them only on the condition that their unions would contain a no-strike clause. The public employees should not be allowed to strike. Movement can't close down.

Eights months after the authentically-elected President Reagan took the Oath of Office, the union of air traffic controllers went out on strike, breaching their own contract strictures, and engaging in an illegal strike of public employees. True to his word - true to his beliefs - President Reagan did just what he said he would do: he demanded the striking employees return to work; when they refused, he fired the lot.

The tumult created by this bold (and some accused, reckless) move was soon to be named mere classic Reagan. Whether friend of foe to the Administration, he was a man who could be trusted to keep his word. In a city replete with last minute, under-the-table glad-handing and deal-making, Reagan became known for resolutely standing by that which he said and knew to be true.

His smile abounds throughout the program; and one can easily see that this man is truly enjoying himself. He is confident as ever; a man wholly prepped for the eight-year task that will soon be at hand. He is a former Democrat whose rightward reformation matches a change that is currently taking place throughout much of the country. He is, at times, gravely serious; at other times, light-hearted and jovial. Throughout, he is disarmingly affable and always confident; with the principles of conservatism sewn deep into the fabric of his governing tradition.

Into the lungs of conservatism new life was drawn; and for every rightward movement, the corresponding Left moved accordingly. Ronald Reagan was the man who changed the political environment from the very moment he accepted the Oath of the Office. Today, he is marked by both Republicans and Democrats for his steady stewardship as Commander-in-Chief, and for his undying faith in the American people and the American spirit.

Thirty years have past and four presidents have come and gone. Today, Democrat President Barack Obama looks to Republican President Reagan for inspiration as well as instruction; and he seems to be a rather precocious student:

"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s...government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think...he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was 'we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.'"

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was in excellent form, and William Buckley, Jr. was the right man to engage him. With both men now gone, this edition of Firing Line makes a fascinating, engaging, and inspiring remembrance of the two; a DVD that should start a collection of 20th century icons.

DAVID AVENDER
Opinion Chronicle
Tuesday, January 15, 2009

A Must Purchase For Conservatives!
William F. Buckley Jr. does an excellent job of asking then Former CA Gov. Reagan's response to a series of hypothetical issues that might come up if he were President. For 50 minutes Buckley covers issues across the board from economic policy discussions on inflation, bonds, and ways to strengthen the value of the dollar to how a President Reagan would handle a hypothetical strike of Postal Workers, a hypothetical which later became reality with the 1981 PATCO Strike.

Reagan gives real,substantive answers which is something you did not see in the recent 2008 election debates. During the primary debates candidates were forced to respond to petty issues with yes or no answers and in one ridiculous case, a show of hands. In this DVD you are left knowing Exactly where Reagan stands on the issues. There is no "I meant it this way" or any other BS excuse you hear from current political leaders(Republicans and Democrats).

If the GOP wants to break free of the Bush legacy and take the reign of governing again it would be in their best interest to start fielding candidates like President Reagan and for their Congressional members to start acting like Republicans instead of being closet Democrats.