The Reasan Revolution

Interviewer: Nino Romani Interviewee: Steven Douglas Symms Instructor: Mr. David Brandt February 9'\ 2005

OH ROM 2005

Romani, Nino Table of Contents

Release Form Pg2 Statement of Purpose Pg 3 Biography Pg4 Historical Contexualization: The Reagan Revolution: A New Way of Thinking Pg 6 hiterview Transcription Pg 18 Time Indexing Log Pg5] Interview Analysis Pg 53 Appendixes Pg 60 Works Consulted Pg 62 ST. ANDREW'S EPISCOPAL SCIIOOL

Oral History Project Interviewee Release Form

1, S Ig^e ^ y/M/^ S hereby give and grant to St. Andrew's (interviewee) Episcopal School the absolute and unqualified right to the use of my oral history memoir conducted by

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the purpose of this project is to collect audio- and video-taped oral histories of first-hand memories of a particular period or event in histoi')' as part of a classroom project (The American Century Project). 1 understand that these interviews (tapes and transcripts) will be deposited in the Saint Andi'ew's Episcopal School library and archives for the use by future students, educators and researchers. Responsibility for reproduction, distr'ibution, display, and the creation of derivative works will be at the discretion of the librarian, archivist and/or' project coordinator. I also understand tliat the tapes and ti'anscripts may be used in public pi'esentalions including, but not limited to, books, audio or video documentaries, slide-tape presentations, exhibits, articles, public performance, or presentation on the World Wide Web at the project's web site www.americancenturyproject.org or successor technologies. In making this contract I understand that I am conveying to St, Andrew's Episcopal School library and archives all legal title and literary property rights which I have or may be deemed to have in my interview as well as my right, title and interest in any copyright related to this oral history interview which may be secured under the laws now or later in force and effect in the United States of America. This gift, however, does not preclude any use that I myself want to make of the information in these transcripts and recordings. I herein warrant that I have not assigned or in any manner encumbered or impaired any of the aforementioned rights m my oral meniou-. The only conditions which I place on this unrestricted gift are:

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8804 Postoak Road • Potoi-nac, Maryland 20854 • (301) 983-5200 • Fax; (301) 983-4710 • hll]):/Avww.saes.org Romani 3

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of conducting this inter\'iew was to create a clearer understanding of what has been dubbed the Reagan Revolution through the experiences of a man who was a key figure in it. The Reagan Revolution encompasses a time period in American political history that this interviewee explains. As a former Senator, tbis interviewee's

intent was to provide a personal perspective on the events that formulated the Reagan

Revolution, Romani 4

Biography of Steven Douglas Symms

Steven Douglas Symms was born in Nampa, Canyon County, Idaho on April 23,

1938. He went to Caldwell High School and had a normal childhood. After high school,

Syinms attended the University of Idaho. There, he studied agriculture and after three years earned his bachelor degree in science agriculture. After earning his degree he served three years in the nmrines. His service in The U.S Marine Corps created many relationships he would sustain. It also provided him an invaluable experience that he would take with him through the rest of his career. The Marine's taught him to be respectful and disciplined through training. After his tliree-year tenure as a marine,

Symins went back to the family business in Caldwell, Idaho. This business was Symms

Fruit Ranch Inc. This business specialized in apples. Symms makes reference to his family business when discussing legislation that involves businesses.

In 1972, Steve Syinms decided to run for the U.S, House of Representatives from

Idaho. He began campaigning and soon realized that many people shared his point of view. He won the seat and began making an impact by pushing conservative ideals in the Romani 5

House. He did this by initiating, promoting, and voting for legislation that followed his own conservative ideolog)'. After eight years in the House of Representatives, he ran for the United States Senate. He upset the popular long-tenn incumbent. In 1986 he protected his seat in the Senate against the ten-year sitting governor of Idaho. During his time as a

Senator he was a metnber of multiple committees including the budget committee, finance committee and the joint economic committee. During his tiine in public service he received numerous awards.

After retiring as a Senator he started his own consulting firm. He then became a lobbyist. He remains involved in politics, in particular the Idaho state politics. Along with staying active in the political world, Symms enjoys golf and is an avid player of the sport.

Steve Symms is currently a lobbyist and lives in Virginia with his wife Loretla. Romani 6

The Reagan Revolution: A Ne\\> Way of Thinking

The Reagan Revolution was a new way of thinking for Americans. In 1980, the

American people elected Ronald Reagan as their president. He was the first truly conservative president since the 1950's when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in office. He was also the man responsible for beginning a new era in American history, Ronald

Reagan was the fortieth president of the United States of America. He was the successor to Jimmy Carter. Reagan was elected president in 1980 and took office in 1981. Prior to this he was a B grade movie star and the governor of California. Before being nominated as a presidential candidate he spoke his consei^ative views as governor. His experience as an actor allowed him to have great public appeal, which is what led him to popularity.

His influence on America during this time period will change the course of Aincrican history and it is important to gain a full understanding of how it managed to create such an iinpact.

Reagan's predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was an intelligent, ailiculate and well- meaning president (Kennedy 586) however, due to inflation, oil prices, and a general lack of public appeal, it was a perfect opportunity for the Republican Party to control the

White House (Gillon 8). Prior to Jimmy Carter, presidents were for the inost part

People had been voting with the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was in a slumber, however, was poised for a surge during Jiinmy Carter's presidency.

The election of 1980 was between Carter, a Deinocrat, and Reagan, a Republican.

Within the Deiuocratic Party, there was strife on several issues. People felt that Carter did Romani 7 not have control of affairs. The United States was an unstable nation and things were not looking positive. The economy was struggling due to inflation and the ever-looming Cold

War caused the American people to be troubled. People wanted a change. Even within the Democratic Party's notnination process, Ted Kennedy challenged Carter in order to present a different opinion and icon within the Deinocratic Part>' and also to boost his own political career. Kennedy offered ways to deal with the inflation. The people felt that

Carter was not doing a sufficient job as the president of the United States, Kennedy was one of those people. This, however, did not work out in Kemiedy's favor due to an incident in which a woinan assistant was drowned in Kennedy's car after Kennedy inadvertently drove his car off a bridge. This happened July 20"', 1969 and it brought along with it a negative view of Kennedy, which he would politically never fully recover from despite his impact as a senior Senator (Kennedy 586).

This nomination process, however, caused divisions within the Democratic Party and left Carter to try and retain the presidency against a strong Republican opposition.

The Republicans thought to take full advantage of the Democratic Party's predicament and did so by gaining support for Reagan as a nominee. During the election, Reagan managed to utilize his public appeal and oration skills in order to present his new ideals to the American people. These ideals went against those of presidents in the several

revamp the economy from what it had been in Carters presidency, less money needed to be given to the government and more of it needed to be given back to the people so they could invest in the econoiny (Niskanen 1). He initiated the conservative view that people could spend their money better than the government could. In order to apply this view. Romani 8 taxes needed to be lowered and federal spending needed to be cut back. He was also very firm when it came to dealing with the Soviet Union. His hard nose policy would continue throughout his presidency. This can be seen in his initiation of the SDI. Also, the idea of

"peace tliiough strength" was an assertive policy that caused the Soviet Union to collapse due to a struggling economy. The platform that Carter ran on was based on the belief that

Reagan would not handle the situation with the Soviet Union in a smart way. He said that

Reagan would lead the US into nuclear war.

Despite this, Reagan won by a landslide. People voted for him because of his new ideals and general public appeal. When Reagan took office, he made an enormous impact. His first proposals as president included many that would enforce bis idea of a small government. The Senate also became Republican, which allowed him to fully utilize the power he held as president. The majority of the house members were

Democrats, however, Reagan found many of the southern Democrats to be supporters of him and his policy (Kennedy 588). Even though the Republicans did not have control of the house, Reagan had enough support from Democrats that he could implement his policy with relative case.

Early on in his first tenn, March 20"^, 1981, president Reagan was shot as he was leaving a hotel in Washington. He was not killed but sustained serious injury.

impressive amount of courage and spirit. When the paramedics were rushing him into the hospital to be immediately operated upon, he was quoted saying to the doctors, "I hope you are all Republicans (Ryan 7)" This comment, though .simple, demonstrated not only his charisma, but also his resilience and braveiy tluough this distressing event. When he Romani 9

got out of the hospital and made his first national speech, his support increased. People

now felt even more connected to him and his message (Johnson 11).

Reagan held the philosophy that the federal govemment should not spend so much money supporting the people, but instead it should let the people support

themselves by creating business and job opportunities. This philosophy led to cutting funds for social programs, but also cutting taxes. The "antigovermnent" approach he had taken during the election was an approach that he followed through with during his presidency. He was known for limiting social programs created by the Democratic Party

(Johnson 30). The Great Society programs, which included most of the welfare programs, were reformed. They became less funded and less of a federal i?riority, Reagan took money from these government run programs and lowered taxes.

Reagan managed to do this with great success. Fie implemented these conservative ideals into the system without any major conflict. People really supported him. By virtually reversing the welfare system that had been developing over the decades prior, he truly demonstrated the impact that he had and would continue to have. This endeavor to end many social programs was completed by Reagan quickly and efficiently.

His tax rate deductions were immense and were applied to everyone. He cut taxes in many different places and cut the federal budget by 25% over a period of three years

/->.T:-I i\ T^ -^^„ „,.-.r !^W^ f,-, r>...:M (l>,. r^..;-rt..f:.... r,.. ri,..w. I,.,. ....i.n*^ i*-t.:.. charisma when dealing with members of Congress. Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that Reagan was a personable man. His ability to push his policy through the

House and Senate was unique. Tt was unique because of his natural social abilities. Also his time spent as an actor helped him develop a unique style of explicating his argument. Romani 10

This economic policy that Reagan pushed for and succeeded in implementing was

known as "Reaganomics". At first, this policy seemed to be a failure. It sunk the

economy lower than it had been since the 1930's, The gap between the rich and the poor

increased. However, in 1983, the econoiny started to rise. Reaganomics was a radical

departure from what the Democrats had done since Franklin Roosevelt by turning income

tax into a method of redistribution, Reagan's idea was basically that if taxes are reduced,

the economy would be stimulated. This was a new concept that the countiy had not seen

since the I920's. This new economic policy went against what Democrats beUeved.

Then and even now in the beginning of the twenty first century, two different

economic philosophies are debated. Both agree that investment is what stimulates

economic growth. One side believes that in order to motivate people to invest, it is

necessary to tax the people who are rich and give it to the government so it can then be

redistributed back to the people who are poor. This would then motivate the lower class

to invest which in turn stimulates the economy. The other side believes that instead of

taking away the money that is made by the people, the people put the money back into

the econoiny. Whether that is through spending it on luxuries or investing, it would create jobs where people could make more money and in turn invest more money, thus

stimulating the economy, Reaganomics wanted to give the people the chance to use the

were experiencing inflation and high interest rates toward the end of Carter's presidency.

It was the biggest change in U.S. economic policy since the New Deal. This new

economic policy was a big part of what Reagan was known for and was a policy that

helped define the Reagan Revolution. Romani 11

At the halfway point of his first term as President, the Reagan Revolution had already gotten underway. This new surge of conser\'ative ideals and policy defined this era. It was a new way of thinking for most people. Instead of subscribing to the New Deal and policies of the past, Reagan went a different direction that started a trend, which would continue into the turn of the centur}'. Reagan's foreign policy focused on the Cold

War, which was in essence an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Reagan felt that this arms race needed to come to an end. He also felt that the United

States was capable of defending itself against potential attacks. In 1983, Reagan gave a speech on national security. In this speech he said

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their

security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a

Soviet attack, that wc could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic

missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? I know this

is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be accomplished before

the end of this century. Yet, current technology' has attained a level of

sophistication where it's reasonable for us to begin this effort. It will take

years, probably decades of effort on many fronts. There will be failures

and setbacks, just as there will be successes and breaktiii'oughs. And as we

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maintaining a solid capability for flexible response. But isn't it worth

every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear

war? We know it is, (Address to Nation on National Security) Romani 12

This speech was the first time that the idea of a missile defense system was discussed.

This idea was seen as farfetched to some. The program initiated by president Reagan was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) more commonly known as "Star Wars". The nickname "Star Wars" was invented by the press who made the connection between this technologically advanced program and the popular sci-fi action movie of the I970's.

The idea for a missile defense program began with a conversation between Dr.

Edward Teller and President Reagan. During this conversation. Teller told Reagan about an idea to use x-ray lasers in space in order to detect and shoot down enemy missiles.

Reagan wanted to take this idea to the next level. Unfortunately, in order to do this, a massive amount of money was required for research and development. Also, there were treaties in place, which restricted the United States from actually using the satellites that would be developed. The expense for all of the research and development would be huge.

AH these factors made it an excruciatingly hard task to complete. (Kurtus 2) However,

Reagan felt, as noted in the quote, that he did not want to rest the fate of the United States on the MAD philosophy. MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction.

This philosophy emerged from the Cold War when the world was entering a nuclear era, This philosophy stated that the reason that one country would not strike the other was for fear of retaliation. If this happened it would result in the destruction of both

,-,M,.>l.:...- r> ,> »...... ,... ,.. " ' ' ,. :;T. .1.- -. r (-n. ! -T . ; j f • t i , • • large amount of time and money into SDI in order to create a way to defend from a potential attack.

Naturally, this new defense system made the Soviets feel threatened. To tv)' and calm this feeling, Reagan offered that he would share the technology developed from this Romani 13 program with them. The Soviets did not believe him, however, Reagan pursued with SDI nonetheless. The Soviet Union felt they needed to respond to this new program with one of their own in order to keep up. (Kurtus 2) The United States economy at this time was doing well. Since the initial speed bumps involved with Reaganomics, the economy continued to grow and prosper. Relatively speaking, the economy of the Soviet Union was struggling. Although the United States could invest in such a pricey program, the

Soviet Union really could not afford it. Because of this, SDI began to develop into an economic weapon for the United States. The ability to actually use this advanced technology would not be for quite some time, however, the influence of SDI could deteriorate the Soviet Union's economy. The U.S. media continued lo mock this expensive program, however, they seemed oblivious to the fact that it had become a powerful economic weapon against the Soviets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union ia

1991, "Russian officials admitted that SDI was the reason (Kurtus 3)."

Reagan's first term would come to a close in 1984, Reagan easily won the

Republican nomination due to a prospering economy and his firm stance with the Soviet

Union, not to mention his continuous public appeal. The Democrats nominated Walter

Mondale as their candidate for the presidency. He named Congi'esswoman Geraldine

Ferraro as his running mate, the first ever woman to appear on a major party presidential

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Democrats, Reagan and the Republicans swept the election. Mondale only won his home state, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia (Kennedy 591).

Tn the beginning of Reagan's second term, foreign policy was the center of attention. The Soviet Union put Mikliait Gorbachev into power in 1985. He led the Soviet Romani 14

Union through Reagan's second term (Kennedy 591). Gorbachev had plans of radically reforming the Soviet Union. He and Reagan met on multiple occasions tliioughout

Reagan's second term and together managed to put the Cold War into a recession. They did this by cooperating with one another and by coming to several agreements.

Particularly the INF Treaty, which banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles frotn

Europe (www.nawcwpns.navy.mil/~treaty/INF.html). Throughout Reagan's second term

Gorbachev and Reagan's meetings ser\'ed as a factor for the beginning of the end of the

Cold War,

With and the meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev and SDI in its continuing effect, the Soviet Union still retained much attention during Reagan's second term; however, the Middle East was starlitig to become an area of concern. The Iran-Contra affair was the most controversial aspect of the Reagan administration. From 1980 to 1988

Iiaq and Iran were at war with one another, Iran was holding American hostages in

Lebanon. In 1985, at the beginning of Reagan's second term, the Israeli government began negotiations with the United States as an intermediary. In secrecy, the Reagan administration began shipping missiles to Iranis in exchange for American hostages. Prior to this, an issue similar had been brought up in Congress. Congress did not permit selling weapons to Iran. They also did not permit funding for the Contras who were an anti-

• , r .: sanctions. They went on nonetheless and the Reagan administration continued dealing with Iran in exchange for hostages.

During this time, Reagan allegedly gave permission to proceed with a plan that would funnel all of the profits made through the missiles being sold to Iran to the Romani 15

Contras. This was on top of exchanging missiles for hostages. The negotiations ceased once Iranis began capturing new hostages. All of the funds gained from the negotiations wilh Iran then went to support the Contras. The Contras also received training from the

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), which would help them break down the Sandinistas who were the alleged communists. The Sandinistas were accused of running similar elections as the Soviet Union. The elections in the Soviet Union were closer to appointments than elections. The word election was used in order for Soviet Union to inask the fact that they were not holding actual elections. This tie to communism that the

Sandinistas were accused of having led the United States to ftandth e Contras who wanted to take down the Sandinistas (Wolf 2).

This whole incident put Reagan and his administration under the spoflight. It also brought a lot of questions pertaining to foreign policy. Reagan was criticized for not being able to control his administration. This was really the first time that Reagan had an incident wheie he was vulnerable. This was a scandal that received much media attention.

Many people believed that this was a major flaw in the Reagan administration. Not only because of the secrecy and deception, but because they believed that Reagan was overstepping his boundaries as a president. Others believed that although it is true that the deception and secrecy should be accounted for, the president does have control over

the Reagan administration and declared that Reagan in fact held "ultimate responsibilit)'" for this incident.

Since the creation of the Constitution, there has been argument as to whether

Congress has say in foreign affairs, or if the executive branch alone makes the decisions. Romani 16

In the actual Constitution there is no indication that Congress has any power over foreign affairs, however, through the last century and as of the early 2 T' centuty, Congress has asserted itself into the realm of foreign policy by passing bills concerning funding.

This scandal brought light upon this issue. This issue would be a constant one throughout the Reagan Revolution. Since this conser\'ative revolution promoted a strong stance on foreign policy, many people felt that there should be more regulation on the power invested in the executive branch. The Iran-Contra affair gave an opportunity for the Democratic Party to gain a breath of life once more. Since Reagan had come into office and the Reagan Revolution began, the Democratic Part)' seriously suffered. Reagan was such an influenfial leader that the Deinocratic Parly had tost a lot of support. The

Iran-Contra affair was the first time they had an incident where they could criticize

Reagan, Despite this, the Reagan Revolution continued. George Bush, a conservative

Republican successor to Reagan, was elected when Reagan's two terms concluded.

Since the Reagan Revolution is a relatively current event, society is still dealing with the impact it had. There are several opinions on the Reagan Revolution. Some believe that it was a time of prosperity and greatness. The United States was a consen'ative nation, and if one is a conservative, obviously the opinion one holds will be in favor of the Reagan Revolution and its lasting impact. Liberals, on the other hand, feel

r J

States. The people of the United States seem to be further polarized then they have been in the past. The heavy majority of people are either conservative or liberal and few are in- between. This means that it is difficult to find information concerning the Reagan

Revolution that has not been manipulated to prove a point. Despite this, it is necessaiy to Romani 17 understand the policy and mindset of most Americans during this time period in

American histor)'.

Reagan left a lasting legacy on the United States. The Reagan Revolution defined the political mindset of a generation. Although, like all politics, there were opposing views. However, it is clear based on the elections that Reagan won and his plethora of support that this new conservative way of thinking would continue to impact America as it progresses through the 2r' century. Romani 18

Interview Transcription Inters'iewee/Narrator: Steve Symms Interviewer: Nino Romani Location: 517 C Street NE, Washington D.C. Date: December 18,2004

Nino Romani: This is Nino Romani and I am interviewing Steve Symms as part of the

American Century Oral History Project. This interview took place on December 18, 2004 at his workplace in Washington D.C.

Steve Symms; One of the things he probably doesn't know is what it means to be a countiy club Republican. The countiy club Republicans were the old guards of the

Republican Parly. They were the people that thoughl ihey were Republicans because if you get so in those days once you get so you earned more then 15,000 dollars a year you became a Republican. If you earned less then thai you were a Democrat. The Democrats made the pitch in the old days, when your dad and 1 were kids what you would hear is, that the Democrats were for the poor people and the laboring people and the Republicans were for the rich people and the business class.

NR: Well, you still hear a lot of that today.

SS: To a degree that has been changed because the Republicans now kind of represent the small business guy on the street, but this conservative, the Reagan Revolution

I .„..!.» -^ t-^l. -^ 3 1 ^. ,-1- _ ., , - .• ---•"-• ^ • '• --• .i .^ IV: •. •- _^i;:-,: r,i;i M^.i. ^ ^ ^ ., ;;_ -.1^,. •• o.. > j - - - > didn't get invited to go to some of those places because I was this kind of this farmer who was kind of outspoken and rough around the edges and all of the above. Once Reagan ran it changed all of that. Socially, I became acceptable. Romani i 9

Romano Romani; The country club Republicans were kind of the upper class in

America, the people who went to countr}' clubs. With the Republicans in Congress, there was certainly always a wing that reflected that. And we had people like Hank Javets,

George Bush senior, whose beliefs diverged from the Democrats on some but not all issues. It was kind of a gentile attitude toward policy. It wasn't a harsh, win at all cost kind of attitude and it wasn't veiy ideological. They were free traders. They were internationalists, that kind of thing. But Reagan changed all that,

NR: Did the mindset of a lot of the countiy club Republicans change once Reagan came to power?

SS: He made the people like me who were the "'bombthrowers" on the leading edge of the, trying to sell ideas, acceptable because he was saying these same things. If you take that statement and go read it and put it into your perspective. That was 1972 when thai was written. Then look at all the stuff you have read about Ronald Reagan and the

Reagan Revolution, it's the same thematic, ideological message. Weaker government, free enterprise, strong militaiy, and a very strong foreign policy that's pro-American.

Trade with people. What we need is trade not aid and peace through strength. You see, conservatives always fought the foreign aid bills and in retrospect I'm not sure that we were always right about that because I think some of that foreign aid is necessary just to

1 ..n .1 - _I^;.• , , f* , ,^ ., T ...... VT, I • - t*^' ••'-'tp ' -- o-- --—.-.--,-- J - -- . people you'll make them richer, is true.

RR: If you were to contrast, Nino, the 1964 election where Barry Goldwater who was the archetype conservative and he ran against the quintessential liberal Democrat Li'udon

Johnson, and Johnson blew him away because the message that he had simply fell on Romani 20 deaf ears at that poinl. And it took another decade, decade and a half, for that to change and it took a Ronald Reagan to say the same things Barry Goldwater said, but he said them in a way that really got to people. Because limes had changed as well, bul Reagan didn't create these ideas. He was able to ailiculate them in such a way as to make them appeal to a broad mass of people. Union people, working people. Democrats of all stripes, were brought to the poll.

NR: So he really widened the revolution?

SS: Absolutely.

RR: He created the revolution. Before him, there were conservatives, but.,

SS: The fact is, when 1 came to the house in the class I came in wilh, we had 193

Republicans. We had some 35 or 40 conservative Democrats from the south headed up by the likes of Bill Wagner from Louisiana and Sonny Montgomery from Mississippi.

And those guys could deliver votes for Nixon, and Nixon never offered veto. When he vetoed something he got Republicans and the conservative Democrats and then they had these big parties at the white house to celebrate. We would all be invited down there you know, I went down there to the white house more as a Republican Congressman then I ever did as a Senator.

NR: Really?

I:I Li. because of Watergate, the Republicans lost 52 or 3 Congressmen. The only reason I won was because I had been running against wage and price control and I used to coin in the phrase of Nixonotnics, you know, and so people viewed me as a kind of an anti-Nixon

Republican so I didn't get caught in that back-burn and loose my election. Because my Romani 21 district was one that was a swing district, il could have easily gone Democrat. In fact it did go Democrat when Larry Craig gave his seat up and ran for the Senate. We lost the seat, it went Democrat. It went back, but.

RR: 1 don't know if Nino asked you this, but one of the things he and I talked about and the reason we talked about was the degree to which the so-called "Sage Brush rebellion" was a precursor to the revolution, and you were vety much apart of that rebellion.

SS: I almost lost this election in 1972 over that issue. Because I had allowed ever\'one to think that I just wanted to auction all the land. You see, two thirds of Idaho is owned by the federal government. They say Georgia, for example, which is half as big as Idaho, has more private land in it then Idaho does.

NR: So that's what sparked the rebellion?

SS: Oh, well 1 mean just the fact that the government dominated all the land, timber resources, mineral resources, grazing permits, all that.

RR: But wouldn't you say Steve that the Sage Brush rebellion was a reaction? So you have a situafion in which, in the west especially, Arizona, Idaho, all the western states, the federal government owns huge amounts of land. And there had always been a kind of acceptable murder for revenge between the private owners and the use of federal lands.

And then you had, starting in the sixties, a strong environmental movement, and the

- ^, ••,.-,--.-... r .- , -- ' govermnent, both through legislation and through just regulations by the agencies, to staii to limit the access of all that through the federal lands and that really sparked a lot of controversy which amassed itself as the Sage Brush rebellion. Romani 22

SS: That's absolutely correct. And so what happened in the years between 1972 and

1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected, he had run for president once in '76 and created enormous support in the grassroots America, but he didn't win the nomination because the other side still had control of the party. Ford was president and he lost to governor

Carter who became president Carter in '76. But during that time there was this constant effort being made and that's when we founded the Heritage Foundation". And that

Heritage Foundation got started right over there in Bill Crane's office on the House side.

And so we said we didn't have an intellectual, we didnT have anybody intellectually to back us up who also has political sa\'\y. Ihere are people out there that agree with us, but there so pure that they re against politicians, whoever they are. So in those four years from "76 to '80 a lot was done. Then Reagan became the spokesman and Reagan was so good and he was so philosophic. See, Reagan had studied at F.E.E. just like 1 had, the

Foundation for Economic Education . Gone to their seminars, knew Leonard Read real well, understood what he was talking about. Why the market system works belter then the govemment running, whether its land management, or schools, or whatever. So Reagan runs and he's this great spokesman. Out of Reagan came the Rush Limbaugh's. See Rush

Limbaugh didn't gel started till '88 or '89 I think.

NR: So right after Reagan.

' "Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote consei"vative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited governnient, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." (ww\v.heritage.org/aboul/)

Founded by Leonard E. Read in 1946, The Foundation for Economic Education was founded in order to study and promole ihe ideas of individual freedom, private properly, limited government, and free trade. F.E.E spreads its message by holding seminars and by creating pamphlets, journals, and other publications. (www.fee.org) Romani 23

SS: Yeah, Reagan was the seminal infusion for ail this uprising, and you've got all these conservative talk show hosts and now fox television, he just had a huge impact. See when

I was running in '72, and even in 1980, there weren't any Rush Limbaugh's there to back you up.

RR: Lets go back to the immediate antecedent of what is the Reagan Revolution and I think it is the Sage Brush Rebellion and you were apart,,, (interrupted) If Nino asked you to define the Sage Brush Rebellion in twenty five words or less, what would you say.

SS: It was an effort to regain control if not ownership of managing the federal lands of western states. To run them locally, if you couldn't take ownership of them, and there was always a resistance within the consliluents, the cowboys and the miners and the loggers, who used the federal lands. They had little latent resistance that they were a little bit afraid to force the federal government to the state or auction them off because they were afraid the "Rockafellers" would come and buy 'em like they had up here. So that always held back a real private solution, Jim Watt never understood it. The guy who understood it was a professor of economics up at Johns Hopkins, Steve Hanke, and he was the one who was pushing the Sage Brush Rebellion. He's an economist, but his specialty was geography. So Hanke was pushing this and he was in the presidents council in 1981 at the white house and the only guy that ever supported him down there was

Watt. Jim Watt was too much a t)'pical conservative, but not a libertarian, you know, economically.

But Romano's right, the Sage Brush Rebellion, and too high of taxes were two of the things that really got the Reagan Revolution going. And the other thing was the Romani 24 appearance thai the United States had grown weak. The Soviet Union had invaded

Afghanistan. The Iranis had captured our embassy and taken our people, 400 of them or something. Were there 400 hostages? He had them for what, 2 years? We never did enough about it. We had one ill-fated attempt to rescue them. And so the stage was set for a real upheaval. And the people like Frank Church, who I was running against, when I talked about we need to reduce the tax rates and say something like we'll generate more revenue for the government, he would just come back and say he just wants to spend more money on defense and cut taxes. And 1 didnl say cut taxes, 1 said reduce the tax rates. It's different because revenues went up ever)' year after Reagan got his tax policy passed. Revenues went up every year. The deficit was a different mailer and probably because il just kept pouring in so by 1992 Clinton ended up having a balanced budged as a result of the lax policies that happened during the Reagan revolution.

NR: So 1 take it you agree with Reaganomics?

SS: (Nods)

NR: But what would you say to the people who criticize Reaganomics by saying that it divided the country and deteriorated the middle class? Because I know I've read a couple,..

SS: Well, that is probably not necessarily happened as a result of Reaganomics. I mean

used to have everybody live in the same neighborhood then we allowed for big roads to be built, so anybody who could afford it moved out of that neighborhood and went into the suburbs, leaving the inner city. Depletion of resources, law and order broke down and people wouldn't invest money in the imier city. It's building back. I mean, around here, Romani 25 when I came to Washington, you wouldn't have wanted to have an office here. This wouldn't have been safe for our office in 1972. And see this has all grown back. So I don't think that T would agree, I think that those are dejected Democrats that are writing that stuff, there's more people out there earning more money then ever before in history as a result of what's happened in the 80's and so forth. I don't know if that answers your question or not.

NR: That answers it. So would you say the economics of today are similar to

Reaganomics?

SS: Somewhat. The concept that president Bush has to reduce tax rates, thai's basically

Ronald Reagan's thesis. Broaden the lax base, meaning lake away some deductions people now enjoy lo guide the economic decisions people make, but reduce the rales.

That's why the ultimate in Reaganomics would be a consumption lax.

NR: What's a consumption tax?

SS: It's a national sales tax. There are no other taxes, you don't have to fill out any fonns or anything. You could buy a new car, you pay 25 percent, or something, of that amount and you'd have to pay that much more for taxes,

NR: So it would be one flat rate?

SS: It would just be a sales tax rate. There would be no taxes on any income that anybody

- •- f ... t , • ,• • .•.'.,,-.•. ' - 1- encouraged to save and invest and create more capitol because capitol is where jobs come from. If you have 150,000 and invest it, that might create ajob for somebody. Romani 26

NR: So would you say that Reaganomics back then, I don't know how I would say this, did he make it more potent, was it immediately enforced, was it more drastic then it is now?

SS: The 1981 tax bill was a massive tax cut across the boards. We reduced tax rates. We actually ended up reducing tax rates. When he went to office the high rate was 70 percent. When he left office, the highest tax rate anybody was taxed was 28 percent. So that's a huge change. A few years after he left office, George Bush, the senior George

Bush, who was then president got sucked into a deal with Senator Mitchell and the

Democrats and Dole and Domenici, who were Republican leaders, to raise the rates up from 28 percent to...(Pauses briefly)

RR: 35 wasn't if'

SS: Well il didn't go up to 35 to start with, Il went up to like 30 point something then it got kicked when Clinton came in and he raised it to 39. Now it's back to 35.

RR: But you have to understand these are marginal rates. The way the tax thing works is, lets say you make 100,000 dollars, you are taxed the first portion of thai al one rate and the next portion of that at another. That 70 some percent that he's talking about is the highest marginal tax rate.

SS: I don't think they'll ever pass anything like a national consumption tax. I don't think

.^... .^11 -r. .. _ T .r, -^t , t. i- _i- i i '" " ••'•-''•'• -J --.--, ~j , J .-..... — v. —J"-- «•" continue to try and work on broadening the tax base by removing some of the loopholes and exclusions, you know, tax sheltered ideas and reduce the tax rates. Just keep trying to push the rates down. Evety time they cut the capitol gains tax, do you know what a capitol gains means? If you buy a house and pay 100,000 for it and then sell it for Romani 27

200,000 dollars, when Reagan took office the difference between 100 and 200 would've been capitol gains tax and you would've had to pay 50 percent of that amount. So you would pay 50,000 dollars on that sale. Wait, I take that back, we reduced that when

Carter was presideni down to 20 percent. It happened at the end of Carters term. But now, they've reduced it to 15 percent. So if you bought a house now, or stock, or whatever, and sold it for 200,000 the taxable portion of that would be 15,000 dollars. And so that causes people to decide, I think ill sell this stock, or 1 think ill sell that piece of property

I've been holding on lo, Fm only going lo have lo pay 15,000 dollars on it, I'd get to keep 85,000 of it, I'd like to have the cash. So as it turns out, the government ends up getting more money instead of less because people do things economically that they wouldn't have done if they had to pay 50 percent.

NR: So it promotes people to invest.

RR: It promotes making money, which in turn creates capitol.

SS: Which in turn maybe gives some young guy like you an opi^ortunity because you wanted to buy that corner and put a fruit stand on it or something. See, and you couldn't do it because Ihey guy wouldn't sell it for a reasonable price because he wanted to walk out of there say 200,000 dollars in his pocket, so he'd have to sell it for 300,000 to walk out wilh 200,000 and now he only has to sell it for 210,000 to walk out with 200,000.

NR: Mmmhm.

SS: So, I mean, I'm talking around numbers, I think my math is off just a little bit there, but the idea is that people will make economic decisions and do things if the tax rates Romani 28 arenT lo the point where they're going lo ambuscade their money. The death tax is another one. Reagan was always against death taxes.

NR: What is the death tax?

SS: The state tax. What Reagan was saying is that a man works hard, saves his money.

Invests it, accumulates some money, then he dies and then the goveiTiment comes in and taxes his death. /Vnd their family had to sell the farm in order to pay the death tax. All these newspapers in America that are now ouTied by Gannett and Scripps' and big chains, the result of those sales are a resuh of the state tax. Not all of Ihem, bul a large share of them. The families that owned those papers had to sell them to pay the taxes.

NR: So we still have that tax today?

SS: We still have it, but the Republican Congress has voted to outlaw it. It's just questionable as to whether they'll make it stick. They had to compromise with the opponents of it. It expires in 2008. They'll repeal it. So Romano and 1 have to plan our lives around so we die in 2008. That's what Jim McClure said. He said I got it all figured out, I'm just gonna try and die in 2008. See, each year the credit will be increased until

2008 when it will be totally turned off In 2008 there's no death tax. Bul then in 2009 it goes back to the way it used to be. Which is ver)' bad. The first dollar on the death tax is a 55 percent rate. I mean, you have a credit of lets say 1 million dollars that you can have

take a million dollars out of your estate. And, you know, that's a lot of money. That's really kind of communistic. After somebody's worked hard, to take that much money out of them.

"* A company that has evolved to become one of the biggest news and infoirnation companies in the US. The company lias many ventures and owns newspapers, television stations, Internet sites, and handles many other investments. Romani 29

NR: 1 mean, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally, bul what would be the defense of having the tax?

SS: Well the defense of that is that you don't accumulate too much so that some people get too rich, then you don't have this middle class out there who doesn't have any money, so you redistribute the wealth, that's the defense of it.

RR: But the reality, the same people who are pushing for these taxes, are the same people who have managed to figure out all the ways to get around it.

SS:An the liberals.

RR: Because the loopholes and the ??+ Foundation sorts of things, like John

Kerry's wife. You know, she s a great example, these are the people who are really pushing these taxes and these are the people who have figured out how to avoid them so they don't pay ihem, but the people who pay them are people like the farmers.,..

SS: We had to pay taxes on every dollar of what we earned, we had no place to shield it.

NR: Well, on a different note, in your opinion, what was your involvement in the Reagan

Revolution as a Senator from Idaho?

SS: First thing that happened was that 1 was apart of the Reagan Revolution when I was in the House. And we were building toward this election of 1980, 1 made the decision to run for the Senate and 1 made it known early that I was going do it. And 1 said that eitlier

•!-•_ 1 r-i , x r ,.; .1 . T- .. . r .L. I. ., ,,-.^. „ .. t. .it -• .i.. -,„->__ -i.--,!...... •• • • t choose to have him, he's a fine man he just, in my opinion, believes in a lot of things that aren't true and I'll be happy to go back to the ranch and grow apples, but I'm not going to stay in Washington and try and go along to get along with the status quo and see the Romani 30

Democrats continue to tax and spend and weaken our national sovereignty and our national security.

And so then, through that, I was able to encourage the likes of Jim Abner who ran against George McGovern in South Dakota. Bob Kasten who ran against, uh, 1 need your dad here to help me with his name, the Senator from Wisconsin, I'll think of it, he beat him. Dan Quayle, It didn't take much encouraging to get Dan Quayle to do it. He ran against Birch Bayh in Indiana. Slade Gordon was running in Washington State. Abner was the one who took the most convincing lo run and he beat George McGovern and so we all got a strong bunch of guys running for the Senate. Several of us. Chuck Grassley from Iowa, 1 helped encourage him to run for the Senate, and so we got a lot ol'these guys running and you know, when I say we, I mean Jack Kemp and Phil Crane and some of these people who were in that group in the House who were the Reagan guys. And so, as it turned out, we get elected to the Senate, and then we had the majority. And we had

Howard Baker, who was the Republican leader. And Howard Baker

(Interview interrupted by a conference call. Interview resumes after approximately 25 minutes)

(Looks at the list of questions I brought, See Appendix A.)

SS: Well like what were the major conflicts? Constantly there was a conflict between

-,-..*^ . .;p.^- ...1... ii t t.. .,. L- j-:_.- _-_ .u^--- -I -. - J. !• .. - always a bit of a conflict. That became a big conflict but I always wanted them to tackle the social security thing and start talking about privatizing accounts. There doing it now, we should have done it years ago. When we did the social security reform bill of 1982 Romani 3 I that Ronald Reagan was so proud of that came out of the Greenspan Commission', they called to start raising the retirement age in 2000.1 offered amendments in the finance committee and on the Senate floor to raise the retirement age of social security one month eveiy year starting in 1984. So by no\v, you see, you would've been through twenty years so you would have raised the retirement age by twenty months. Senator Moynihan got up on the Senate floor and spoke why I was right and gave this wonderful speech about why

Symms was right and it should be done now, but we just don't have the political courage and will to do it now, and so on. The Greenspan Commission which he had been on and

Senator Dole had been on, agreed to do it out here in ?? twenty years from now and then Dole got up and piped in and said yeah, because none of us will be around here and take the wrath from the voters. Eveiybody laughed you know, but it would've solved the social security problem. I was disappointed il didn't get enough votes you know to pass, but a few guys did vote for it. It was surprising that some Senators voted to raise the retirement age.

NR: It seems to me within the Senate, I mean, back then, it seems dominantly in support of Reagan,

SS: Not really, the conservatives never ran the Senate. So that would be a conflict that came through. When you say what were the conflicts in the Senate over legislation during

that a lot of the more moderate Republican Senators didn't agree with what Reagan was

•* Formally known as The National Commission on Social Security Reform, this commission was created in 1981 in order to make suggestions wilh r egar ds to Ihe social security crisis of the lime. This commission was created in res|)onse to a bipartisan feeling that the problem witii regards to financing social security was imminent, (www.ssa.gov/history/greenspn.htm!) Romani 32 tiying lo do. Eveiything had to be compromised, but he was a great negotiator and compromiser.

NR: A lot of the things 1 read said that he had the Republican base in the Senate and he also had the conservative Democrats from the south.

SS: He won big victories. I don't want to downplay it. My problem was that I was too close to it. See, my conflict was that I was too close to it and 1 wanted to do more all the time. So I was always one of the people pushing that we gotta do more, see (Making reference to the interview questions. See appendix A.) What was the most important piece of legislation that came through the Senate while you were a Senator? There's probably two or three bul one of them clearly was the 1981 lax reform bill. And another one was the '86 tax reform bill. Those two bills had a huge impact on, 1 think, helping the economy grow.

The other piece of legislation that would have been important would have been his restoration of the pride that Americans had in being Americans and restoring the defense appropriations bills to where we spent more money on defense. (Referencing the interview questions) Do I regret any of the decisions 1 made as a Senator? I did have some votes that I cast that I would do differently, but not anything that would have affected the outcome of the free worid or anything. Like there was one on a judge that

him and I wouldn't have ever done it again. Wlien I look back I don't think I looked at everything, I think it was a mistake.

And (Referencing the interview questions) who were your political enemies while serving as a Senator? I never really had enemies. I had people that philosophically Romani 33 differed from me, you know, the liberal side of the establishment, but I never imputed anybodies motives. And I never allowed myself to impute anybodies motive. That was one of my cardinal rules because they happened lo believe things that are not true, but they sincerely believe them. So 1 didn't have any enemies that I know of Dale Bumpers was a good friend of mine in the Senate from Arkansas and I think if you went and asked him he'd say the same thing. We were reaiiy good friends. Really loved the guy, but he voted different from me then anyone else in the Senate, In other words, if you put our voting records on a spectrum, he was on one end of the scale and I was on the other, furthest away from him. We voted different on more things then anybody else. My friends were of course the guys like Jim McClure, who was the senior Senator from

Idaho, who was also my closest friend in the Senate. Paul Laxalt from Arizona. Orrin

Hatch from Utah. Then the guys 1 went m the Senate wilh, Chuck Grassley, Dan Quayle,

Bob Kasten, Malcolm Wallop from Wyoming, we were on the finance committee together, we were good friends. Jesse Helms from North Carolina, that's just naming a few.

NR: Sounds like you're a popular man.

SS: We used to have a group that met every Wednesday for lunch, the conservative

Republicans, and when we started we sat around a table like this (Referencing the 8

Wednesday. So it's changed. That's called the Republican Steering Committee. We did not have that many members. It was Laxalt, McClure, Helms, Hatch, Symms, oh Bill

Armstrong from Colorado was one of tny best friends in the Senate because he and I had been in the House together, and he had come over two years aliead of me. Thad Cochran Romani 34 was another guy that was a good friend of mine in the Senate; see we had been in the

House together. And Trent Lott. Trent Lott, Thad Cochran and I were all in the same class in the House and Bill Cohen was in that group too. He went on lo become secretaiy of defense in the Clinton Administration as a Republican. He was not a conservative you know. He is not a conservative 1 should say, he's still alive. But yeah, I had a lot of friends in the Senate, I enjoyed the Senate, it was fun, but I was ready to move on when I didn't run for re-election in 1992 and I have no regrets about not running again. I spent twent)' years in Congress and I was ready to get out and do something different.

NR: You had enough. So you really enjoyed your time....

SS: I really enjoyed it. 1 really particularly had fun in the early days in the House. And in those days, in the Flouse, we were kind of leading a crusade for stronger defenses, for bigger tax rate reductions, and we weren't winning, but we were laying the groundwork for what was yet to come in the future. And so it was a lot of fun in the House during the seventies you know, being in the minority', A lot of work once we got into the Senate as the majority. It was a lot of work because once your in the majority you can't just pull the pin and throw the hand grenade out on the floor and let the enemy figure about picking it up or jumping on it you know. And 1 say that figuratively. But when your in the majority you have to help pass the bill so you have to vote for things that you don't want to vote

•" ' •' .:...".,., •' ' ' • •** ' • ••' 't, .f

NR: Like parly votes?

SS: Well you have the responsibility to see that they get their bills passed so that the appropriation bills for example can pass and if the Democrats all hold against it, like we passed the first budget that went through the Senate, oh I was going to tell you, I-Ioward Rojnani 35

Baker stood out on the capitol steps, you know he had run for president in 1980. Did not win and Reagan won the Republican primary. Baker was one of the candidates that started to run for president, Howard Baker would probably be a great president it just didn't work out for him to ever win. He made a decision out there on the capitol steps that he was going to cany Ronald Reagan's agenda in the Senate. He came in, we had our first Republican luncheon, you know with all the Republican Senators together, eveiy

Tuesday they'd meet and he gave a little speech, and he said gentlemen, 1 made a decision, and Nancy Kassenbaum was our one women member at that time, he said gentlemen and Nancy I made a decision, I'm going to carr^' president Reagan's agenda.

He said I sat there on the capitol steps and he said if any of you weren't moved by thai then you were in a different place. He said it was a wonderful speech, positive, optimistic attitude about where America needs to go and 1 want to be apart of it. So I'm going to be beating on you all to vote with us for this agenda, and he did.

So the first big fight came with the budget lesolution and Senator Robert Byrd was the Democratic leader. He forced us to vote on fifty-three issues in that ensuing week or ten days. And like, for example, what they'd do is lets say there was 100 million dollars in the budget for vaccinations. They'd offer an amendment to raise that to 110 million dollars or 120 million dollars and so then we got to vote on it and what would

in this case Bumpers, and we'd have to vote to table his amendment to raise the allocation, the budget, for vaccinations. So then they could use that and say well then

Symms voted to kill twent>' million dollars for vaccinating the poor the hungiy and the downtrodden or they'd add more money for food stamps they would do ever)' heart throb Romani 36 issue that you could name and we voted on il and we won ever>' vote by one or two votes.

They were always close. We always lost somebody and Baker would sit up there on that table with his leg hanging over the table end and he'd say Steve now, we've gotta have you on this vote. 1 got three guys who can't vote wilh us so all the rest of you guys all have to vote with us. We can't loose one of you. And if you have something later, maybe we can lay you off if you need to vote against me, so he kept track of it all the way.

We beat Byrd on every issue, but Robert Byrd was really able. He's a very good

Senator. And see. Senator Stevens was then the whip. Floward Baker was the leader and

Senator Stevens was the Republican whip and they were really good leaders, Fhey did a great job keeping the Republicans in line. So we all voted with them, so we ran the

Senate. See, the Democrats didn't think the Republicans could do it and eventually,

Baker was there for four years then he left, and then Dole became the leader and in 1986 the Democrats took the Senate back. And in part, our guys that lost their races, lost because in my opinion, they philosophically were unable lo defend their position of having cast all these votes in a humanitarian way. In other words, you have to out humanitarian the humanitarians. See the Democrats are always for all these downtrodden, these poor people. You have to be able lo spin the issue and say but the way you help poor people is by giving them ajob. You don't give them a hand out; you give them a

And so like raising the minimum wage law is not going to help anybody. If you're right about raising the minimum wage laws why don't we raise it to twenty-five dollars an hour? And then eveiybody can have a twenty-five dollar an hour Job. Now the truth is, if you did that, you'd have massive unemployment because people wouldn't hire people. Romani 37 or they'd work in the black market for ten dollars an hour, or five or something, you know, under the table, because people couldn't afford to pay them. So that's the point I'rn making and a lot of our guys lost, we lost nine or ten seats that year and the Democrats took the Senate back in 1986.

NR: So did that change...

SS: Well it hurt Reagan's ability to pass legislation his last two years. He was pretty well neutralized by the Democrats in the Senate; he couldn't pass what he wanted to. Well what he did do when he came in iiis first term, he was able to put together coalitions to pass budget resolutions, spending caps, tax cuts and increase allocations and appropriations for defense. And the other thing Ronald Reagan did, right in the middle of all this in 1982, we actually passed a bill to raise the federal gasoline tax to five cents a gallon. No other president could have done that. I mean, he was a president who was a tax cutter, but he came out in favor of a nickel a gallon gas tax increase. Now why did he do that? Do you know?

NR: I do not.

SS: The reason he did it was because the highway dollars are put in a trust fund that can only be allocated out to build highways. And he wanted to see the completion of the interstate highway system. The interstate and defense highway system is the actual name

•'"• -^^ • ,1^.-,.- "f.-i-f -.1 ..'1,.-.. T?:.. .,T, „ ,. M-.--.-* 1. , 1 r,, rT. . '— completed all of the interstate by the 1980s and we didn't have enough money to maintain the current interstate and finish the rest of it, so we raised the gasoline tax a nickel a gallon and put it into the fund and it made enough money that we completed the interstate. The last sections of the interstate had been completed in Boston, Mass. Right Romani 38 now you've probably read about the big dig they call it the most expensive highway ever buih and so forth. That completes the entire interstate system in the United States that was originally laid out. So Reagan was a big believer in the saying thai goes, show me a business or company that doesn't have either a railroad track coming by the business or a good highway and I'm going to show you one that's going to go broke. Because you have to be able to transport whatever it is your producing.

NR: So did the five cents per gallon go just to the one fund? There wasn't any other...

SS: Well one cent of it went to the mass transit, you know, the itmer city transportation allocation, and four cents went into the highways. So he compromised. See he really didn't want lo do that but the urban vote required htm to do it. So like here it would have been for the D.C. metro. A penny would have gone to some of the projects of the D.C. metro. They're not really highway projects, bul Ihey do alleviate the pressures on the roads. The metro does.

NR: I can appreciate that. I rode the metro to the capitol,..

SS: Today?

NR: Not today, but over the summer.

SS: Where'd you work last summer?

NR: I worked as a Senate page and then 1 also worked down at the mall at some of the

c^^4.: 1 - il, ,i it. 1., .1

SS: Ok. That's a good experience. Lets see, what else have we not covered here.

(Referencing the inteiview questions. See appendix A.) Why do you think Reagan had such an impact on America? Well, his persona, but also he had confidence in the

American people. And he believed that America was a country made up of individuals. Romani 39

And that each person you know is an important building block in that society and he believed that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were products written by men that believed that we had the divine right of ownership of property. And God granted the original power you have as a person and then you gave the federal government so much of it, with the Constitution, it wasn't the other way around. And he really believed that. But he was optimistic, Ronald Reagan was the original guy that if he found a pile of horse manure he'd say where's the shovel, I gotta start digging, there's probably a pony buried in here somewhere. See he was optimistic. That had an impact on

America's mindset. He made Americans become more optimistic and you know, people could criticize him and say thai maybe sometimes he saw eveiything through rose colored glasses but he was basically optimistic and had faith and love for the American people. And he could articulate it. Lets see (Referencing the interview questions. See appendix A,).

NR: This is a question I did want to ask (Referencing the interview questions. See appendix A.).

SS: Why did I get involved in politics? That's why you need to read that statement (A written statement he issued in 1972). t was so frustrated with what I saw going on. We had wage and price controls, which I knew didn't work, and we had a Republican „_^,; 1 . T^- t i^r- TT .•. v . ...I ..-:. s.i.^.:.._. I...1.. K..i it.. r* ... , pushed wage and price controls because the Democrats believed they could do that. They believed that they could interfere with the market place and set wages and prices and make life better, when all of the communist countries where they have a controlled economy live worse then we do. But yet they still did it. You know capitalism is a system Romani 40 that does away with povert)', it heals homes, it turns on electricity, it builds hospitals.

Capitalism the system creates a much better lifestyle. We built a huge road system in this countiy so you can go get in your car and drive somewhere freely wherever you want to go. And the controlled economy countries like the iron curtain countries, the former

Soviet Union and all that, they were years and decades behind us in terms of the standard of living of their people. So that caused me lo think you know, were loosing this battle.

My friends and I, we published this little newsletter called the Idaho Compass.

And we tried lo publish this thing and put out these ideas of freedom and how we could do things better and how maybe we ought to be leasing the forestry' school out to the lumber people and leasing the mining schools to the mining people so that we could teach market capitalism in the schools. And nobody would pay attention but people are interested in politics, so my two buddies and 1, we decided well lets just one of us run for

Congress and then people will listen to our message there. Well, one guy says, I'd be a terrible candidate. He's a bachelor and in those days, he was about fifty-two or three years old, bald headed bachelor, he said nobody would vote for me, says I cant do it. The other guy, he was a lawyer and a preacher and he said I can't do it because I'm too well educated. They said Steve, you're the right one. Your young, your enthusiastic, your good looking, you've got a good looking family and everything, we can make you into a

people. The ideas will have consequences. In other words, ideas have consequences and that's what Leonard Reed had taught me at the Foundation of Economic Education. So I go out there and ran, and I knew then my first trip up through this district in Idaho it's the western half It's from Idaho from Canada to Nevada and the line kind of goes tlirough Romani 41

Boise, About half of Boise is on one side and half on the other, There were two

Congressional districts in Idaho, And 1 knew instantly that 1 was going to win. We didn't have any polls, never took any polls, we spent a third as much money as the other candidates spent in the primaiy. I knew I was going to win. The other guy was the hand picked product of the Republican party of Idaho, State Senator, lawyer, Nixon

Republican, good guy, just retired as a state Supreme Court justice. The end of this month he retires. He later was the attorney general of Idaho and he probably would have been a good Congressman and Senator. He wouldn't have rocked the boat like I did, but he would've been a fine guy, he would've gotten along ok.

So 1 go out and run, upset the apple cart, and all the political pundits were shocked, all the political writers, they didn't see it coming. And I could see it coming, I mean, I could feel h. 1 carried three by five cards with me and if you had come up to me after I'd given a speech, I'd get people to come up and say Bonnersferiy Idaho and I wanna help you. And I'd say fill this card out and then I could go talk to the next guy. So you'd write down your name, your phone number, your address, your occupation and give mc back the card, then you're on my list, then we're contacting you. So pretty soon,

I mean, I hadn't been going along very long till I had twenty-five hundred people on this list that we were working with. Then out of those people, we went back out and made

and we ran a grass roots campaign. And these other guys didn't even know what hit them.

NR: So you just took everybody by storm?

SS; It was like, have you ever seen a car on a dirt road. Well you've seen Wiley coyote.

You know how Wiley coyote is running and you see the dust come up way behind him Romani 42 but he's way out in front. Well that's exactly what happened lo us. All they could see was the dust back there, meanwhile we had already passed them. So in our election, the primary was a huge deal, 'fhere was a Senate primar>' and a House primaiy. So the state was really involved in this primaiy election because we had an open Senate seat. So that means the Democrats had a big race for their Senate primary and the Republicans had a big race for their Senate primaiy and then the House, the first district was open because one of the candidates lor the U.S. Senate was Congressman Jim McClure who won the

Senate primary. And that day, this is in 1972, he got elected to the Senate that year, and so he became a Republican Senator with our senior Senator who was the Democratic

Senator Frank Church.

Two years later Church ran for re-election and won by a pretty big margin in

1974. And six years after that I ran against him and beat him and he wasjust in the prime of his life, he was fifty six years old, he was you know a great Senator twenty four years in the Senate and he was always ttying to be as conservative as he could be in Idaho with his rhetoric but he was a ver>' liberal Democrat, so he had a duplicity problem. Nobody had ever run against him. You know your dad was talking about how it was kind of below the Republican mentality to go and hit somebody right over the head with a baseball bat and say you know what your doing is your costing us jobs and your hurting

know they would just tiy and never be too critical of Frank and you know, the business community liked having a Democrat and a Republican Senator in Boise because they thought it was pretty good to be half and half because the Democrats had majority of

Congress. Nobody ever thought the Republicans would ever take the Congress back. See Romani 43 people couldn't even conceive that the Republicans would win the House and Senate back.

NR: It was that farfetched*^

SS: Yeah, it was that farfetched. Republicans could get elected president, but they couldn't win the Congress back. That was the Democrat's area. And a lot of us would say that's nonsense; we can go out and win these seats back if we stand for something. And so we proved that we could.

NR: So it wasjust an uproar of people who were sick of being silent.

SS: Yeah, so 1 go out and run and there was a majority of people out there who agreed with me and I didn't even know it. ITn oul here trying to educate people and I found out 1 already had a lot of people. If you saw a million mice running down the street and you go out in front of the mice and started playing the flute then you're the pied piper right?

NR: Yeah.

SS: So that's basically what happened, I mean, we gave them a lot of the leadership too. I argued the case for capitalism versus stateism and gave the case in the campaign. I mean we had ads, I had ads in the campaign, and we spent all our money on radio and TV. And there were only three channels in Boise Valley then. None of this cable stuff Actually there were only two in Boise, so we only had to buy two television stations in Boise to

. ,,.,.1, ... ..,.1..,.T. .^ ,..T T ,.,,..j., ,T V...... r(t,,,^. T-.., .t, .,,:„.,..(,*...-_. - I pigeons, and I'm hitting them all as a matter of fact, and I turn around and I say Steve

Symms is against gun control. Why are you against gun control Steve? And I said because the founding fathers knew that as long as people had guns they could be free from oppressive government and problems within and without the country, and freedom Romani 44 and justice in America has always come from the ballot box, the jury box and when those fail, the cartridge box. And it just went over like you wouldn't believe. I mean, people were just stunned that anybody would say this. And the other one I had was I'm holding this brick that we painted up gold you know, and I said why can't we own gold? See it was against the law to own gold in America then.

NR: Really?

SS: Yeah, and I said I'll tell you why we can't own gold, because the politicians in

Washington know that if you can own gold, you can protect yourself against their printing presses where their inflating the currency and stealing money out of your pockets by printing more dollars and making them cheaper all the lime. And 1 said that's why we can't own gold. There's a lot of places in the world where you can own gold and protect yourself from inflationaiy politicians but you can't do it in America and that's why you can't, because their afraid of us being allowed to own gold. We passed gold ownership by

1976.

NR: So you couldn't own gold?

SS: It was illegal to own gold in the United States prior to 1976. It had been legal up until

1933 when Roosevelt closed the banks and then he made gold illegal. Why, because then they could inflate the currency. Then I had another one saying in 1773 the founding

Oppressing them, and regulations were too much. You send me to Washington, and I'll take the message back that the people of Idaho are ready to tlu'ow tea in the Potomac

River for the same reasons. And people loved that stuff I wasn't anything new. These arguments were all made by Plato and Aristotle. Plato was a communist, and Aiistotle Romani 45 was for freedom. And the arguments are the same. They're the same in Congress today as they were when I was here.

NR: They transcend time.

SS: Yeah, they transcend time. There's an ultimate argument about who should be making the decisions. The people out there on the street or the elitist here in Washington and that's why the Democrats are getting their butts kicked nowadays, because they believe they're smarter then the people out in America and they know best how to run things. And they think if you give me this money here, we'll tell you how to spend your money and how yoti ought to run your life. And the American people think they're smart enough to run their own business. That's why they voted for Bush ovei' Kerry. Bush is a result of the Reagan Revolution, He's more of a consen'ative then his faiher ever was.

NR: His faiher seemed to be more of a moderate.

SS: His father is a wonderful person, don't get me wrong, 1 love his dad, he's a tremendous hero in Worid War II. He's an honorable person bul never could quite bring himself to the confrontational politics that his son does. See George Bush Junior, W., he confronts these people. You know, he's tough. He confronts Ihem. He's not apologetic about what he believes in.

NR: He is forceful.

still worried about is that the juiy's still out on Iraq. If he can pull this off and we can get this election next month in Iraq, and they put in their own governnient and the Iraqi army then can start gaining strength and taking over the security of the country and keeping law and order and we can get out of there, he will have accomplished a heck of a lot. Romani 46

NR: A lot of things Fve read have pointed out that Reagan was a precursor to the situation in the Middle East. Not that he was a direct cause, but he supplied them with weapons in the Iran-Contra affair and all sorts of things that lead up to the issues we have now. Would you agree or disagree.

SS: No, 1 wouldn't agree. This is more or less a religious war. Some of the problems are due to the fact that we can't solve the problems with the Palestinian situation and so that's a forum that the more radical Muslim elements use, that the Israelis mistreat the

Palestinians. I don't think there is any validity to it, but that's the case ihal they make.

And somefimes in politics the perception becomes more important then the reality because people perceive something to be what is or isn't and thai is what becomes the truth in politics. So the perception is that the Israelis are mistreating the Palestinians and we support the Israelis. The Palestinians all say Jews and the Americans are the problem and so I don't think that Reagan was necessarily a factor in that. The unfortunate part of the Iran-Contra was that Ronald Reagan should have vetoed the bill that made it illegal for the U.S. government to support the Contras. Because the Democrats got an amendment in the bill but Reagan thought well, we'll just go around that. So he has his, I don't think he was involved in it, his CIA director William Casey figured out that since the CIA wasn't allowed to do it he could get John Poindexter and Oliver North over to

approval from Bill Casey and the president to go out and make some deals and make some money for the Contras, to keep them going until we could get that law changed.

And he should have vetoed the law when it came over to his desk he should've vetoed the bill and said come back and do it again and take that out. He would've won that veto. But Romani 47 he just didn't want to have to go through the confrontation and the hassle and have to keep everyone in town over Christmas and all that. lie should've done it. He wasjust too willing to compromise it. And so what happens is Casey gets sick and dies right in the height of this thing. His CIA director wasn't there running telling him what he should be doing. So he left Poindexter and North and some of these guys hanging out to dry.

And to me that was the worst thing he did. He should have pardoned every one of those people because what the Democrats tried to do is they criminalized what was the president's foreign policy. His foreign policy, the Reagan doctrine, was you not only contain communism, but you roll it back. And we're going break their back and bring down the Beriin wall and bring down the iron curtain and open up the world. And he did it. But what happened was he goes down here, I was ahead with him one night when he stood up and spoke, and we had a guy there in the audience from the Contras and we had a guy there from the ?Musliahadin? and he stands up on the floor and then we had a guy theie from Angolo, all these were fights between communists and freedom lovers. Except in Afganistan, now, in retrospect, it wasjust nationalism against the Soviets, who happened to be there. It wasn't really anti-communism anymore then it was anti-Russian or anti-whoever you know. But Reagan gets up for his speech and he introduces the guy from the audience and he stood up he said I am ?Mushahadin? Reagan says this, and

o •' •• says I am with you sir, I am ?Unita?. And then the guy from the Contras. He stands up and he said we're so proud of you, the Contras, he said I am with you; I am a Contra I support you, I'll do anything I can to help you. This is the president of the United States saying this stuff. Romani 48

Now the Congress had passed a law thai we couldn't do that, that we couldn't support the Contras. I offered the amendment to repeal the Clark amendment^ so that we could start supporting people in Angola. I got that passed through the Senate. And so then the CIA started helping them in Angola and we'd thought we win that one, but we didn't.

So then OIlie North goes out wilh the direction of Bill Casey the guy at the CIA and

North doesn't work for them, he's working at the white house. He said go out and get some money from these rich Saudi Arabians to fund the Contras. So they did that, they went over, they got people to give them money and they put il in a fund and then they bought ammunition and supplies and what not for the Contras. They were private contributions from rich Saudis. They did this just because they wanted to keep good relations with the United States. And so in addition they found out, well they can get some of these hostages out if we can sell some of this old weaponry that we don"t really need anymore. So we'll trade it to the Iranians and gel some hostages release. And we can get money out of it from the Iranians and give il to the Contras, So that's the thing they were doing.

It was a brilliant operation and then we allowed it to gel out of hand, and if the president had just stepped in and said hold il a minute these people are all pardoned. They were only doing what they thought to be my policies. They're pardoned. They've got

you're probably too young to remember this, eight)' five percent of the American people

'' The "Clark Ajnendment" to the 1935 Social Security Act was a proposal introduced in the Senate Finance Committee by Senator Bennett Champ Clark (D-Missouri). This amendment liad many loopholes and did not solve social security in the US. It was a focal point of discussion in the eighties because it dealt with social security reform and also because it was the first amendmeru lo bring up the idea of a private sector social security fiind. By amending this amendment to make social security a private sector system, the government could distribute ftrnds elsewhere, (www.ssa.gov/history/clarkamend.html) Romani 49 were on North's side. They were against the Senators and the Congressmen. They were interrogating him, but he was so articulate he would shove it up their ass so to speak.

Here he is, sitting there in uniform Silver Star and all these medals and eveiything and looking the camera strait in the eye broad face talking so clearly and people loved him.

And the guy up there who was doing all the questioning had the long ratty hair and he was a flaming liberal Democrat, and he was saying how this is terrible that they could do this, but the public was on North's side. And Reagan wouldn't pardon him.

Pat Buchanan was at the white house, and you know who he is, the commentator,

Buchanan begged the president to pardon North. 1 didn't get to talk to the president about it. Orrin Flatch, myself, we tried to tell him, pardon these people and end this thing right now. They're trying to impeach you Mr. President. He didn't understand that, he couldn't accept the fact. Then his wife you know she was more moderate about il and she thought that it made Ronald look too belligerent lo do that. So she talked him out of it. Bill Casey died, there wasn't anybody in there lo plead the case to him. If Bill Casey had been alive and healthy he would've gone in and said Mr. President, here's what's happened, and there's only one way out of il, your just going to have to pardon all these people and we'll just close the book on this thing.

NR: And it wouldn't have been as big of an issue?

people were on Ollie North's side.

NR: The pundits were against Reagan then?

SS: The liberal ones were but the gut people out on the street, they were not against

Reagan. I mean, I think that was proven, George Bush got elected. His election in 1988 Romani 50 was really Ronald Reagan's third election. People just re-voted for Reagan basically.

After Bush had been president for four years he fooled around and lost it.

NR: To me the Iran-Contra affair always is viewed in a negative way,

SS: Oh it is. But it shouldn't have been. It was a wonderful operation. 1 mean you get money from the ?IatoIa? to buy ammunition, rifles, food supplies, and hand grenades to a bunch of people in Nicaragua who are killing communists. Now what's wrong with that.

That's basically what it was. So instead of a criticizing these people and eveiything, they should've given them medals for a brilliant operation.

I\R: 1 can't say that I personally disagree with that, but the one thing that 1 did have a little strife with was the fact thai we supplied them wilh weapons and that seems like negotiating with terrorists.

SS: You mean the Iranians.

NR: Yeah, the Iranians, then all they would do is go and take more hostages. It wasjust a cycle.

SS: Yeah, that's probably true. It didn't really work lo negotiate with them; however, it did give money to the Contras so they could keep on fighting. We won that war. The iron curtain came down. Ronald Reagan and the Pope were the two people who wanted to bring down the iron curtain more then any other two people in the world. And Maggie

"* •- - -"-O-v, . t>"'-" ^1-.^.

NR: More then enough, thank you.

The Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990, she was the first woman Prime Minister of Britain and was known for her conservative policy and interaction with Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union. Romani 51

Time Indexing Log

0-5 minutes: A general synopsis of the legacy of Ronald Reagan and his iinpact.

5-10 m: Discussing the Sage Brush Rebellion. What il was and how il impacted people's opinions.

10-15 m: Discussing the antecedents lo the Reagan Revolution. Talking about what was going on before Reagan became president.

15-20 m: Economic theoiy. In particular the conservative economic theory, which was known as Reaganomics during the Reagan Revolution.

20-25 ui: Continued talk about economics and the tax policy in the United States during the Reagan Revolution.

25-30 ni: Tax policy in the United States during the Reagan Revolution. Also how Steve

Symms became involved in politics and a briefing of some key political figures in the

Reagan Revolution.

30-35 ui: Discussion about conflicts within Congress during the Reagan Revolution.

35-40 in: Discussed senators and other political figures of the Reagan Revolution and how they impacted his life.

40-45 m: Talked about the relations between Senators within the Republican Party during tne Keagan administration.

45-50 ni: Explained the process of creating an interstate highway. Also began discussing

Reagan and his impact.

50-55 m: Talked about his political begimiings and his reasons for becoming involved in politics. Romani 52

55-60 ni: Talked about how he realized people in fact wanted change just like he did.

Also discussed rumiing for the Flouse of Representatives.

60-65 m: Discussed the situation in the Middle East During the Reagan Revolution.

65-70 m: Began discussing the Iran-Contra Affair.

70-75 m: Finished the Interview discussing the Iran-Contra Affair. Romani 53

Interview Analysis: Steven Douglas Symms

The interview that 1 conducted was with former Senator Steven Symms. The inter\'iew topic was the Reagan Revolution. As a former Congressman and Senator, Steve

Symms is a valuable resource because his account of the political actions during the

Reagan Revolution is first hand. He was personally involved with making some of the political actions, which are defined as the Reagan Revolution. The transcription covers the main events of the Reagan Revolution, h goes into detail about the mindset of the people during the time period. It also provides much inside detail, which could only be re-enforced or refuted by one or two people. Many of the details are regarding interactions between him and his Senate peers. The interview that was conducted with

Steve Symms is a valuable resource. As far as a purely historical resource, many of the details that were provided by Symms concerning the interactions within the Senate cannot be found elsewhere. Also, il is a valuable resource because it gives the opinions of a topic, which this person was personally involved in. Flis opinions are based on experience. Both his opinion and knowledge provide for a valuable resource.

The interview begins focusing on the beginnings of the Reagan Revolution. There is mention of the Sage Brush rebellion. Also, Steve Symms discussed how he personally became involved with nolitics This is nn imnn?-tant asnert of the intpn/ip\^' bprnucp it shows how the people were feeling on a more personal level. There is also detail concerning taxes and economics. The economic theory that was commenced while he was a Senator is known as Reaganomics. Symms says that, "Reagan had studied at F.E.E. just like I had, the foundation of economic education (Romani 22)." This school taught economic theoiy. One of the key things that it taught was that the tax rate should be Romani 54 reduced. The interview then went into detail about several people whom Steve Symms had come in contact with and who had impacted him. These people were mostly

Republican Senators who Symms became close with. The interview then went into

Reagan and his impact. Along with this came commentaiy on society in general. He said that Reagan was an optimist. He gave people something to look foreword to. He also discussed how Reagan was a great communicator and how he represented /Vmerican sentiment at that time. His policy reflected what the American people wanted. He also managed to pass legislation that promoted his political beliefs. Steve Symms went inlo detail about being in the Senate at that time, fhis is possibly one of the most significant aspects of the interview because it allows people lo read a personal accouni of what was going on within the Republican Party, who held the Senate majority, while Reagan was president. Since Reagan managed to pass legislation, il is reasonable to wonder how he managed to do so when he did not have a substantial majority in the Senate, Symms talks about how the Republicans managed to pass most of Reagan's legislation in a Senate where one or two votes could pass or veto laws. After this, the interview transitioned to discussing the Iran-Contra affair. The interview concluded after discussing the Iran-

Contra affair.

Oral histor)' is unlike any other historical record available. It provides a personal

' '•'- '•'•-•• i- •- - -> -^ - t— ^.^ ..w « ^-,...... -.«. ....j^-^.j ^^^, .«vo a different method of examining the past. The most common method of histoty is simply looking at the facts. By just examining the facts one learns what happened during the time period. This is important because in order to understand why things are the way they are today it is necessary to look at the past. This type of histoiy provides knowledge of Romani 55 events. However, it does not provide an account to how people were feeling, or how certain people actually experienced life. Oral history is a more personal way of looking at histoiy. It is an actual account of someone who went through it, someone who lived through histoiy. It is their perspective on what happened and how it affected Ihem. This method is not perfect. Since the information is biased and totally based on one person's account of it, the likelihood of the account being totally accurate is slim. However, the account is valuable because no one else experienced histor>' like this person did.

Everyone experiences things differently. By using the method of oral histoiy it is possible to examine the different ways people experienced the same event.

The interview focused on several key issues. My inlerviewee went inlo detail about the economic and tax policy of the Reagan Revolution. These were issues that were important to my interviewee because he was on the tax committee in the Senate, The issues he focused on while he was a Senator were tax issues. During the inter\'iew he also says how he worked with other Senators within his party. He talked about Howard Baker, who was the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. He says.

Well you have the responsibility to see that they get their bills passed so that the appropriation bills for example can pass and if the Democrats all hold against it, like we passed the first budget that went through the Senate, oh I was gonna tell you, Howard Baker stood on capitol

going to cany Ronald Reagan's agenda in the Senate, Fie came in, we had our first Republican luncheon, you know with all the Republican Senators together eveiy Tuesday they'd meet and he gave a little speech and he said gentlemen, I made a decision, and Nancy Kasssenbaum was our one woman member at that time, he said gentlemen and Nancy I made a decision, I'm going to cany president Reagan's agenda. He said I sat there Romani 56

on the capitol steps and he said if any of you weren't moved by that then you were in a different place. He said it was a wonderful speech, positive optimistic altitude about where America needs to go and 1 w^ant to be apart of it. So I'm gonna be beating on you all to vote with us for this agenda and so he did. (Romani 35) He talked about how Howard Baker took attendance on who voted for Reagan's agenda and who did not and pressured Senators to vote for Reagan's legislation.

As the interview continued, he talked more about how he came to be and how

Reagan impacted America. This was verj' interesting because he really was a part of the

Reagan Revolution from the beginning. In Idaho, he saw how things were going and he wanted to change them. He had no real intentions of winning when he started, he just wanted to gel his opinion be heard and lo put ideas on the table. He said that once he began telling people his ideas he realized that he was not the only one that felt that way.

In Idaho, and across the countiy, people were craving change, Symms was someone who stepped up as a figurehead in this period of change. Syinms in particular was a very opinionated House member and Senator. He was apart of a new class of representatives that came into the House at the same time he did. They were far right Republicans. They wanted tax rate reduction, a strong pro American foreign policy and a reduction of social service agencies. Symms likes to describe himself as someone who rocked the boat. He tnanafrfd to rpfitl\' inaVp ph^nopc miH Kt-inr Tl^it nmc tUa

Reagan revolution, bringing and acting on these new ideas and Symms was a part of that.

The interview ended talking about the Iran-Contra affair. Symms believes that it was mishandled and that it was in fact a good mission. He admits that the hostage situation was wTong, however, the actual operation was a good one. He said that Romani 57

It was a brilliant operation and then wc allowed it to get out of hand and if the president had just stepped in and said hold it a minute. These people are all pardoned. They were only doing what they thought to be my policies. They're pardoned. They've got amnesty, you see what I mean. When Ollie North went and testified in front of Congress, you're probably too young to remember this, eighty five percent of the American people were on North's side. They were against the Senators and Congressmen. They were interrogating him, but he was so articulate he would shove il up their ass so to speak. Here he is, silting there, in uniform. Silver Star and all these medals and ever^'thing and looking the camera strait in the eye, broad face, talking so cleariy, and people loved him. And the guy up there who was doing all the questioning had the long rally hair and was a flaming liberal Democrat, how this is terrible that they could do this, but the public was on North's side. And Reagan wouldn't pardon him. (Romani 48)

This is obviously opinionated, however, it does give a good understanding of how things happened through many peoples perspective. Symms is not Ihe only one that feels that they should have been pardoned. He is also right that many Americans were on the side of Ollie North, He also makes an interesting point of the public perception of the people inten'iewing him and Ollie North. This just proves that the way people look does have an impact. Obviously, Ollie North looked much more appealing. He looked more

nrrifpCCinilfl tmrl tlP> |r*nl-P>H lit'O tllO rr.-u-l.-l r»nr t-iainrv »-.^'-.i"o^..f^rJ O,..,,..!.,^ J. ..«-. 1 •!. -

Iran-Contra affair until the conclusion of the intewiew.

The interview has historical value. Some aspects of it are less valuable then others. A lot of the specific detail regarding economics and taxes are veiy important, but can be found in other places. A lot of the actual infonnation that was given during the inten'iew can be found elsewhere. The two most unique aspects of this interview are how Romani 58 he came to represent the state of Idaho and how things were when he got there. These are things of historical value that cannot be found elsewhere. They are important to understanding the time period because they show how the Reagan Revolution started and what it actually was. The Reagan Revolution began with people like Syinms being elevated to political status because he was feeling the exact same way as many other people around him. The Reagan Revolution began as an American mindset. People like

Symms decided to act upon these ideas and realized that many people felt the same way.

This is how it started. There was now a new group of people being represented in

American politics. New ideas were being translated into legislation. The process of getting legislation passed and following through with Reagan's agenda was when the

Reagan Revolution was at a climax. New ideas were being passed and Reagan was a great orator with a lot of character, which made it easier to pass this new legislation.

Syinms experienced all of this. He was in the middle of the process. He voted on the legislation that came through during that time, which made him apart of the Reagan

Revolution, As a senator, his account is vety accurate. Symms knows accurate statistics that relate to what he dealt with as a Senator and Congressman. The contextualization provides a background of the time period Reagan was president, however, the interview with Syinms provides details about what he was personally involved with as a member of

This type of hands on account of the Reagan Revolution is unique. The way he felt when voting on these issues and how they got things done are strengths of the interview. Some of the interviews weaknesses were that it focused on some things that were interesting, but not unique. Some of the information gathered were things that were Romani 59 more like factual histoiy as opposed lo oral histoiy. In retrospect I should have steered my interview more toward the direction of personal experiences rather then gather information. However, there were still very unique aspects of the interview that have great historical value, ft provides new infonnation about the inter-workings of Congi'ess during the time pre-cursing, and during, Reagan's time in the executive office. In particular it provides a look into how the Republican Party functioned and managed to pass legislation while Reagan was president,

I learned a lot from this process. This interview taught me about the Reagan

Revolution. It also gave me an opportunity to hear aboul it from an individual who was intimately involved with it. I learned a lot aboul policy during the lime period and also about a lot of people within the Senate during that time that made an impact. The Reagan revolution is a culmination of ideas being put forth into legislation. The person I interviewed was one of the key figures in doing this. I learned that there is more than one side to a story, Eveiyone experiences history differently so eveiyone will have his or her own unique account of how it happened, ft is important to be able to look at the bigger picture with regards to ititcrviews and books about histoiy, 1 also learned that events impact people in many different ways. My inteiviewee was helping to make the events that would impact people, but he had lo take into account all of effects that his actions

people are affected differently by different things. It taught me that everyone's experience of history is imique. Romani 60

Appendix A

Ititeiview Questions

Nino Romani

1. What made you decide to get involved in politics?

2. How did you feel about entering the senate exactly when Reagan entered office?

3. W^hat were your thoughts of Ronald Reagan prior to taking office?

4. How would you define the Reagan Revolution?

5. When would you say the Reagan Revolution began and why?

6. In your opinion, what was your involvement in the Reagan Revolution as a

Senator from Idaho?

7. What were the major conflicts during the time of the Reagan Revolution?

8. How do you feel aboul Ronald Reagan and his policies? Wh)'?

9. How was your view of Reagan affected by the Iran-Contra affair?

10. What were the conflicts in the Senate over the legislation that came through

during Reagan's terms as president?

11. In your opinion, what was the most important piece of legislation that came

through the Senate while you were a Senator? Why?

12. Do 5'ou regretany of the decisions 3^ou made as a Senator? ij. vviiiti vvab lire uiiiig tiiai you were most prouu oi as your iime as a cienaiorr

14. Did you ever second-guess yourself as a Senator?

15. Who were your political enemies while serving as a Senator? Your friends?

16. How did Reagan impact the mindset of Americans?

17. Flow and why do you think Reagan had such an impact on America? Romani 61

Appendix B Romani 62

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"About the Heritage Foundation." The Heritaae Foundation. 2005. 8 Feb. 2005 .

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Craig, Shiriey, Reat>an's Revolution : The Untold Story of the Campaign 'fliat Started It All. N.p.: Nelson Current, n.d.

DeWitt, Larry. "The Clark Amendmeni." Agency Histoiy. Aug. 2000. Social Security Online. 8 Feb. 2005 .

D'souza, Dinesh. "A Child of The 'Reagan Revolution' Grateful for Inheritance." The Christian Science Monitor. 2004. The Christian Science Monitor. 8 Feb. 2005 .

Gillon, Steven M, "Jimmy Carter." 2000. Histoiy Study Center. 8 Feb, 2005.

Johnson, Darv. The Reagan Years, San Diego; Lucent Books, 2000.

Kenned}^ David M. "The Resurgence of Conservatism." The Brief American Pageant. Sixth Edition ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

Kurtus, Ron. "The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)." Succeed by Studying Recent History. 8 June 2004. 8 Feb. 2005 .

"National Commission on Social Security Reform." Social Security Online. 8 Feb, 2005 .

The Library of Economics and Liberty. 8 Feb. 2005 .

Ryan Jr., Frederick J. Ronald Reagan The Wisdom and Humor of The Great Communicator. San Francisco: Collins Publishers, 1995.

Wolf, Julie. "The Iran-Contra Affair." PBS Online. 2000. PBS. 8 Feb. 2005 .