Ron’s Questions: Segment One
Welcome to The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy, sponsored by Sage, transforming the way people think and work so that organizations can thrive. I'm Ron Baker, along with my good friend and VeraSage Institute colleague, Ed Kless. On today's show, folks, we are honored—we have Tony Dolan, former President Reagan's Chief Speechwriter. Hey, Ed, how's it going?
Ed
Great, Ron. I can't wait to talk to Tony. It's going to be fantastic.
Ron
Yes, we're making our way through Reagan’s speechwriters. This is wonderful. So let me read Tony’s Bio, and I can’t do it justice because it's incredible [see below for full Biographical information]. Anthony Dolan is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, at the age of 29, and was chief speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, from March 1981, until the end of 1989. For a time he was a conservative folk singer who put out the album, “Cry, The Beloved Country.” He wrote two of Reagan's most famous speeches, “The Ash Heap of History” speech and “The Evil Empire” speech. Tony Dolan, welcome to The Soul of Enterprise.
So Tony, how did you go from having a youthful indiscretion of supporting JFK in 1960, to being chief speechwriter in the Reagan White House?
That's incredible. I never had the chance to meet William Buckley or Reagan, for that matter. And you were a pallbearer at Buckley's funeral. What was he like, Tony?
Excellent. I will check that out [see National Review links below for more of Tony’s writings]. That's wonderful. Because everybody says he had such a magnetism about him, and he was just such an energetic guy. When you talked to him, you felt like you were the only person in the room.
I want to talk to you about Reagan's four speeches that framed the Cold War. And of course, you're responsible for a lot of these, your fingerprints are on them. But the British Parliament speech, where he announced his strategy in 1982; the Evil Empire Speech, where he made the moral case for pursuing his strategy; the Berlin Wall speech, of course, where he pressed his advantage with Gorbachev; and then the Moscow State University speech where he took his victory lap, I guess you could say. You wrote the first two of those—the first, the British Parliament speech is phenomenal. What's the backstory with that?
Tony, that's fantastic. And unfortunately, we're up against our first break.
Ed’s Questions: Segment Two
And we're back with presidential speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, Tony Dolan. Tony on the speech at the House of Commons that you were just talking to Ron about, Ronald Reagan had a reputation for being a war monger. But at least twice, if not three times in this speech, he clearly says I'm willing to negotiate. I want to negotiate. Talk a little bit about why you think his reputation has been so tarnished. It's a bizarre thing to me when he was clearly willing to negotiate.
There's a great moment in the speech, and it comes just before the ash heap of history line, that I sort of remember from the time but really came into full view after re-listening to it, when he invites Brezhnev to speak on American TV in exchange for allowing him to speak on Soviet TV. Was that Reagan? Was that something that you came up with? What's the origin of that? Do you recall?
Yet it was one of the few lines that provoked a response from that audience. There was almost absolutely no response, positive or negative, for the entire speech with the exception of that invitation to Brezhnev. I thought that was quite interesting.
It was just an interesting thing, he wraps up by saying, in the most optimistic Reagan voice, “A new age is not just possible, but probable.” Every speech I think I’ve ever heard from him ends on an optimistic note. That's just his personality wasn't it?
Outstanding. Well, we're up against our next break.
Ron’s Questions: Segment Three
We're here with Tony Dolan, who was the chief speechwriter for both terms of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Tony, amongst the Reagan administration, there were people who were labeled “true believers,” and “the pragmatists,” and of course, one of the pragmatists was David Gergen. This guy's a textbook pragmatist. Anytime I want to know what the conventional wisdom is in Washington, I listen to David Gergen, because that's about all you're going to get. But he said in a 2000 interview, and I'm sure you're aware of this, I just wanted to get your reaction. He said, “I hate to admit it. Tony Dolan was right. And I was wrong. That phrase, the evil empire allowed Reagan to speak truth to totalitarianism.” How's that make you feel?
The way [Reagan] framed the Cold War, Tony, has always fascinated me. He said, basically, “We win, and they lose.” It's simple, but it's not easy, which is a sign of remarkable ingenuity and creativity. But you explain that by saying he was an actor, he's used to alternative endings. And I think that's a profound insight.
Tony, Clare Boothe Luce said, “A great man is one sentence.” What do you think Reagan's one sentence is?
Yes, Margaret Thatcher, I think, said “He won the cold war without firing a shot.”
Excellent. Well, Tony, thank you so much. Ed's going to take you all the way home, but I just wanted to say thank you, this has been an absolute honor to be able to talk to you.
Ed’s Questions: Segment Four
And we're finishing up here with our guest, Tony Dolan, Reagan's chief speechwriter for all eight years in the White House. Tony, I'm going to go back to the Evil Empire speech and I have to ask this question. The joke early on that he tells about the politician and the clergyman going to Heaven. Was that his joke? Was that something he collected?
In the speech, I think, he quotes from [Alexis] de Tocqueville, “If America ceases to be good, it will cease to be great.” And then Reagan mentions that the turn to secularism is beginning to happen in the in the United States, but they're not a majority yet, he says. Do you think the secularists are a majority now? And are we ceasing to be good?
I have a question for you about speech delivery. As you saw with Reagan, he clearly was the master of the teleprompter and did it really well. But I did notice in preparing for this interview that when he would quote from someone, he would look back down in his notes, rather than read it off of the teleprompter. Was that something that he just did naturally? Or was he really searching to get the quote right?
We've got only about one minute left. And the one last thing I want to ask you about is, I heard a quote that you said about Reagan: that he did not mind people calling it [The Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI] Star Wars. Talk a little bit about that, if you recall?
So true. Well, the last quote I have is from speechwriters. I think Peter Robinson said, “We stole from him” and another speechwriter said that “He was the best editor I ever had.” Tony Dolan, thank you so much for appearing today on The Soul of Enterprise. We really enjoyed this conversation. I hope maybe you'll come back and maybe we can get a better connection next time. Thanks again, Tony.
All right, Ron, what do we have coming up next week.
Ron
Next week we have Cory McComb. He's the author of Productivity Is For Robots, a book I thoroughly enjoyed.
Ed
Alright, that's it outstanding. I'll see you in 167 hours.
More Information on Tony Dolan
ANTHONY R. DOLAN
Pulitzer Prize at 29 for investigative reporting for exposes of the Gambino crime family and corrupt cops and politicians.
Chief speechwriter for eight years for President Reagan.
Special Adviser to Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for six and a half years. (In the Pentagon on 9\11. Briefer for SecDef, Joint Chiefs Chairman, and combatant commanders before news conferences.)
Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
A veteran of eight presidential campaigns and many state and national contests, Produced many noted TV spots and media campaigns for candidates and SuperPacs.
Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Advisor on Planning, 2017-2021
BIOGRAPHY
Anthony R. Dolan is a graduate of Fairfield Preparatory School, and Yale University, where he majored in philosophy and history.
Beginning with F. Clifton White Associates in the early 1970s, he has worked as a political consultant on many campaigns and held staff positions on eight presidential campaigns.
As a reporter for the Stamford Advocate, he won six journalism awards for his exposures of organized crime and public corruption including the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. His work in Stamford and exposure of mob influence reaching into the state capitol was recently written about in Roguetown, a book by undercover police officer Vito Collucci who dedicated the volume to him.
Mr. Dolan’s stories resulted in the resignation or dismissal of more than 15 local and state officials as well as multiple indictments of organized crime figures, corrupt police officers and others. His series exposing Gambino family ties to government officials and the many personal threats of physical violence it led to were the subject of a 1981 Rolling Stone feature article and the 1983 development of a movie script at Paramount Studios. (Later the also the subject of a Hollywood Reporter column by legendary film authority Robert Osborne.) Two years later the Connecticut State Supreme Court – in a unanimous decision written by the Chief Justice that was seen as an affirmation of reporters’ First Amendment rights -- ruled against Connecticut’s State Senate Majority leader (who had been defeated for reelection due to Dolan’s stories about mob influence) and affirmed the disputed stories were not only protected from a libel action under Times-vs-Sullivan precedent but were also true.
Mr. Dolan was the only member of President’s Reagan’s senior staff to serve all eight years at the White House where he was chief speechwriter and Special Assistant and Deputy Assistant to President Reagan. In addition to supervising the speeches at four Reagan-Gorbachev summits, he worked with President Reagan on many foreign policy speeches including the "evil empire" speech in Orlando Fla., the "asheap of history" speech to the British Parliament at Westminster Hall, London, and “Tear Down the Wall” in Berlin. The story of the latter speech is found in his Wall Street Journal article called “Four Little Words.” Mr. Dolan also worked closely with President Reagan on a July 1981 Address to the Nation on tax-cuts that sparked a strong public reaction and overcame entrenched opposition to the legislation. His speech drafts in the campaign of 1980 and through the early years of the administration emphasized Ronald Reagan’s desire to celebrate American heroes especially those in the US military. One national tradition, presidential phone calls on Christmas to members of the five services, grew out of Mr. Dolan’s initial suggestion.
In June of 1982, at the invitation of Attorney General William French Smith, Mr. Dolan made a presentation on organized crime and public corruption to the Justice Department senior staff and played a major role in developing the Reagan administration’s October 1982 plan for a crackdown on the mob that led to a quadrupling of prosecutions and disintegration of seveal mob families. In addition to a Loa Angeles Times story on his behind-the-scenes work, then FBI Director William Webster referred to him as “the guiding spirit” behind the plan. Along with famous undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone (“Donnie Brasco”) Mr. Dolan was one of two speakers to address the organizational dinner meeting of the President’s Commission on Organized Crime in 1984.
In the field of foreign policy, he has served as a special adviser to the US. Delegation to UNESCO in Paris France (1984) and the UN Disarmament Conference in Geneva Switzerland (1988).
On the last day of the Reagan administration Mr Dolan received a handwritten note from President Reagan that said "Tony ….you were keeper of the flame."
A friend of President George HW Bush, Mr. Dolan was an unofficial adviser during his term in office. In the administration of George W Bush, Mr. Dolan was at the State Department during the presidential transition and then was Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell until July 2001. For the next six and a half years, he served as a Special Adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Dolan, who was in the Pentagon on 9\11, had a principal role in briefing the Secretary of Defense, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs as well as Combatant Commanders before each news conference. A former US Army Specialist 4, Mr. Dolan was the recipient of the Department of Defense's civilian award, The Medal for Public Service. He also wrote and broadcast for Our American Network a tribute to wounded and fallen war heroes (especially those he knew) called “They Will Be Remembered” .
He then served as Special Adviser on the presidential campaigns of Fred Thompson (2008), Newt Gingrich (2012) and Ted Cruz (2016).
Mr. Dolan has run his own communications strategy firm working with a wide array of major associations and corporations as well as political clients. His work producing TV spots and media campaigns for candidates and SuperPacs have drawn widespread commentary during the last ten years. His writings have appeared in a variety of journals and newspapers from National Review and the Washington Monthly to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Wall St. Journal.
His writing career began in the late ‘60s when he began a close friendship with National Review editor William F. Buckley Jr, and for whom he was a pallbearer at his 2008 St Patrick’s Cathedral funeral. In the late 60s and early 70s, Mr. Dolan also wrote music and recorded an album as well as performed four nights a week at Finnegan’s Wake on New York’s Upper East Side.
Tony’s writing in National Review
Bonus Content is Available As Well
Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.
This week is bonus episode 340 - Masks and Flying Taxis
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