Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!
(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)
To Touch the Face of God
Monday June 7, 2004
From Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii State GOP Convention
The bewildering number of Subscription Drives are on because MULLINGS needs your help! Click here for all the details.
On January 28, 1986, the night a shocked nation was trying to come to grips with the explosion upon lift-off of the space shuttle Challenger, Presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan reached into her marvelous bag of tricks and pulled out two lines from a poem named, "High Flight" which had been written by a young American, John Gillespie Magee.
Magee had volunteered for service with the British Royal Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The lines were paraphrased thus:
"They �. slipped the surly bonds of Earth;
To touch the face of God."
It was quintessential Reagan: America was distraught; he was calming. America needed comfort; he soothed.
Peggy, yesterday, told me how it had come about:
The State of the Union address was to be that night, the night of the [Challenger] disaster. The President was meeting in the White House, I think the Roosevelt Room, with network anchors and reporters; telling them what the aims of the speech were to be.
He was called from the room, watched [the coverage] on television, talked on the phone, got back to the Roosevelt Room and gave the network guys his reaction. A National Security Council staffer took notes, which she gave me. Those notes became the heart of the speech.
President Reagan didn't know the speech was a success. He called me the next morning and told me he had been so upset about the tragedy that he didn't think he could have found the words to properly express it. Then the calls and telegrams started coming in, and he had the grace to say it was due to me.
The Magee poem he quoted at the end -- I knew in my gut he knew it, but wasn't sure. I put it in knowing if he wasn't familiar with it he'd take it out. He didn't. And the next day he said to me, "How did you know I knew that poem?" I told him I just felt he did. He told me he used to read it -- it was engraved on a tablet outside [his daughter] Patti's school, and he used to see it there.
This episode speaks volumes about the man President Reagan was:
He was unafraid to tell the nation's senior reporters and anchors what he was feeling while he was feeling it - without the benefit of focus groups or polling data;
He went on television and provided the guidance and consolation for which we were desperate.
And he gave the credit to someone else.
When Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 winning 49 of 50 states, it was because he had reminded us that we are a nation of optimists. We are a nation of people who came to America believing in a better life; and believing we can demonstrate that better life to the rest of the world. "It's Morning Again in America" was not just a campaign slogan; it was what Americans wanted to hear - needed to hear.
Ronald Reagan died on Saturday. He has now "slipped the surly bonds of earth"; and we pray, "touched the face of God."
We believe in our hearts and in our souls that God, feeling Ronald Reagan's touch, turned toward him, smiled, and said, "Welcome."
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: The entire (but short) Magee poem and a link to the complete Reagan speech of that night. Also a Mullfoto from Hawaii and a nice photo of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
Current Issue |
Secret Decoder
Ring | Past
Issues | Email
Rich | Rich
Who?
Copyright �2002 Richard
A. Galen | Site design by Campaign
Solutions. |
� 
