Some time back, Seth Weathers asked if I would do an interview on The Last Jeffersonian for his website, www.TheReaganLegacy.com. Here it is:

TheReaganLegacy.com: When did you first develop an interest in Ronald Reagan?

Steven: I was only twenty-one at the time. Home from college, I watched as Ronald Reagan took the podium to speak after Gerald Ford had won the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency in 1976. After the speech I thought, “This is an unusual politician.” Much later I found out he gave the speech without any advance preparation. Only someone who had given as many speeches as he had could do something like that.

TheReaganLegacy.com: What do you feel is Ronald Reagan’s strongest characteristic?

Steven: Everyone says it’s his “sunny optimism,” but to me his outstanding quality is his determination. We can see that in his stubbornness, self-discipline, and persistence. He never gave up – it was just plain grit. It isn’t in the inner strength of most people to take criticism the way he did. He just kept soldiering on. He had faith that people of good will could make everything turn out all right. He could never have accomplished the things he did without these characteristics.

TheReaganLegacy.com: What speech, in your opinion, was Reagan’s greatest?

Steven: Reagan himself says his best speech as president was the one he gave to the British Parliament in 1982. He predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse and he explained why it would happen. He also argued that the West should fight to defend people’s rights, no matter where they live. He knew that to defeat the Soviet Union, we had to win the moral battle, not just the military one.

TheReaganLegacy.com: What inspired you to write this book?

Steven: I was the only person in my family who had any regard for Reagan. I just wanted to explain to people close to me why I admired  him and why people should take what he said seriously. The book grew beyond that, but it started out simply.

TheReaganLegacy.com: How will history view Ronald Reagan?

Steven: His stature will be similar to Theodore Roosevelt’s. If he’s evaluated fairly, if his reputation shakes free of  the prejudices that some academics have against him, he’ll be judged in the first rank. His patriotism and his vigorous foreign policy bring T.R. to mind. As time passes and we look back it seems clearer and clearer what he did to win the Cold War. The things he did all through his administration led to the fall of the Soviet Union shortly after he left office. That was a long and dangerous conflict. Nobody thought he had a strategy to win it, or that he could accomplish such a thing. But he did.