The Reagan Files 2025
The First Term (Abr)
The Reagan Files 2025 is a revealing collection of official transcripts from President Reagan’s first term in office.
A deep dive into the primary sources of Ronald Reagan’s first term in office, Jason Saltoun-Ebin’s The Reagan Files 2025: The First Term Abridged curates the official archive to create a portrait of a pivotal moment in American history.
Beginning with Reagan’s first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ending on the eve of his second presidential term, with Mikhail Gorbachev coming to power in the Soviet Union and the Kuwait Airways Flight 221 hijacking crisis, The Reagan Files uses declassified transcripts from all levels of presidential and national security meetings to tell a granular story of Reagan’s first administration. Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and other senior officials and members of Reagan’s National Security Council appear in the transcripts throughout, giving a sense of the personal dynamics and relationships that undergirded Reagan’s time in office as well as the managerial style in which advisors could debate, strategize, and make policy decisions themselves. This comes to the fore early on, when Reagan was hospitalized after the assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981. His advisors are shown debating and deciding matters of Middle Eastern foreign policy, including weapons aid to Saudi Arabia and financial aid to Israel, in his absence.
At a research level, the book is impressive. It contains extensive endnotes and a large index, and it highlights statements made by Reagan himself in bold so they jump out on a given page. The editorial commentary mixed in also makes liberal use of quotes from Reagan’s diary and other primary sources beyond the official transcripts. Quiet moments, from Reagan’s ruminations on losing the first debate to Walter Mondale in the 1984 election to internal staffing conflicts, are narrated and give a sense of context and background that enhances the official records.
A strong emphasis on foreign policy foregrounds the US’s negotiations and stances toward the Caribbean, the Middle East, East Asia, and other regions as Reagan sought to confront the Soviet Union and conclude the Cold War. This brings to light prescient documents that reveal Reagan’s conversations about Palestine’s future with figures who include Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan, and the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Still, while the chapters are organized around particular subjects—for instance, the US’s involvement in Central America and the Contras in Nicaragua—they prioritize chronological ordering. As a result, many topics, such as the US’s policies toward Israel and Palestine, are scattered across the book. While the discrete events of specific weeks and months are highlighted, the overarching policy actions of Reagan’s first term have to be pieced together across the text.
Further, the book’s transitions between its editorial commentary and primary sources are awkward, with the transcripts are interspersed with, interrupted by, and introduced by analyses that are not always distinguished from the primary sources well. Since the analyses and primary documents are treated with the same formatting on the page, the line between them is often too ambiguous. Awkward word choices, as where a meeting is referenced as occurring “today,” and inconsistent punctuation and capitalization muddy the text too.
The Reagan Files 2025 compiles records that shine light on the backroom conversations, strategies, deals, and thinking that shaped the US’s policies in the 1980s and beyond.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
