At Reagan's Side: Insiders' Recollections from Sacremento to the White House

Using dozens of interviews with Pres. Ronald Reagan's closest advisors, historians Knott (Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth) and Chidester attempt to circumvent what many labeled Reagan's ""wall,"" to find the man at the heart of the (carefully calibrated) presidential image. Because this charmingly ""opaque"" politician didn't publicly ponder on his presidency (even in his autobiography), Knott and Chidester depend on those around him. With both fondness and a clear effort at objectivity, the authors largely let the interviewees speak for themselves, including high-ranking officials like Caspar Weinberger, Edwin Meese and James Baker. Discussion is candid, but often contradictory; indeed, the most interesting and revealing moments of the book come from the discrepancies, invariably tied to the era's most famous controversies: SDI, Iran-Contra, the Cold War. (Further, many advisors use their spirited defense of Reagan's legacy in order to pin blame on other advisors.) For all the insider stories, none actually goes behind the wall of the 40th president-the subjects, in fact, labor to reinforce that wall-and Knott and Chidester's own synthesis is thin, unable to answer the overarching question of Reagan's success, concluding that he was ""too decent"" to be great.