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.

Reagan also made his pile at GE, which paid him $150,000 a year by the time he left, or around $4 million in today’s money. That would put him up there with the top PR men of the modern City, the Roland Rudds and Alan Parkers.

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At the time, of course, the Cold War was in full swing and on the home front labour relations had grown poisonous. On one side, leftish union leaders attempted to transfer value away from shareholders towards workers, while simultaneously bankrolling radical Democrats. On the other, big companies believed Moscow was behind every demand for a pay rise.

The word ‘Boulwarism’ was coined to describe GE’s techniques for defusing the situation. Boulware went over the heads of union leaders and appealed to their members, using the sort of communication techniques we take for granted today: polling, newsletters, town hall meetings, education programmes and book clubs.