Sunday, February 6, would have been Ronald Wilson Reagan’s 100th birthday. Those of us lucky enough to remember Reagan as President, will tell you that our admiration and respect for Reagan was not borne out of policy-wonking or White House “optics”. Instead, Reagan earned our respect in ways that cannot be described. So here is Reagan in his own words.

Governor Ronald Reagan writes to his daughter Patti on June 5, 1968. Robert F. Kennedy has just been shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles:

Dear Patti,

As you know, and as Mommie has told you, I’ve been in and out and up and down the state, so I’m a little late in answering your letter.

We still have some time about your question as to schools, so let me see what I can find out about everything around here with regard to that senior year.

I know you are concerned, as all of us are, about what happened here. It is a great tragedy, just as it was a great tragedy for his brother. I’ve been here in the office all day, and feeling almost sick most of the time. Even though I disagree with him on political matters and even though I disapprove of him and his approach to these problems, I still feel very deeply the tragedy of this young man taken from his family in this way. I don’t mean to make this sound so final, but the latest word we’ve been getting is one that the condition is very grave. Of course you’ll know the answer by the time you read this as to how great the tragedy is or whether things are going to turn for the better.

In all of this sometimes one can learn why a certain course has been followed. There are many times when I have wondered why I’m doing what I’m doing. Now is one of those moments when I’m grateful that I can be in a position to perhaps change things to see that we do start a return to sanity and law and order and turn away from this whole creed of violence that seems to be so prevalent in our land.

Isn’t it strange, a few months ago our friend in Washington told me that she foresaw a tragedy for him before the election. She didn’t know whether it would be in the nature of illness or accident, but that there would be a tragedy befall him.

I must run now.

Love,

Dad

(Reagan: A Life In Letters, by Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson Free Press, New York, New York p.55)

Just a man telling his daughter that one can fight the good fight against a political foe but still respect and love the man and his family. No woe-is-me drivel; a man accepting that this may be the moment he was chosen for…a time to lead.