The making of Ronald Reagan

I have a new hero. He is called Lemuel Boulware, of America’s General Electric Company. According to a fascinating new book by Thomas W. Evans*, Boulware should be credited not only with a role in defeating the intellectual apparatus of communism, but with the creation of one of the most successful US presidents of all time: Ronald Reagan.

History has largely glossed over the fact that Reagan spent eight years from 1954 as GE’s ‘ambassador’. He was employed by America’s biggest company to go round its plants giving pep talks, and to present General Electric Theater, a popular television chat show.

Reagan was hired by Boulware, who was GE’s head of public relations. The future President joined GE as a second-rate actor cum union rep and Democrat New Dealer, but came out a free-market Republican. He never lost his admiration for Franklin Roosevelt, but by the time Boulware had finished with him, he was convinced that big government was threatening to bring America down.