Peter Schweizer, author of Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism, tells Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon that former first lady Nancy Reagan’s unconditional love for her husband, her inner strength and intelligence helped him win the Cold War against the Soviets.
“This is going to strike a lot of people as very provocative, but at this point in time and history, if you were to compare who has had a bigger impact on American history, Nancy Reagan or Hillary Clinton, you would have to say that Nancy Reagan had a much larger impact on American history,” Schweizer said.
Schweizer also noted that Nancy and Ronald Reagan had a the oft-ridiculed traditional marriage: “She was a partner with Reagan. And not just a partner in that when they were in Hollywood, she did the cooking and things like that. She was a true, intellectual partner. This was a man who while he was in Hollywood, he was married to Jane Wyman. Jane Wyman had an affair; it devastated Ronald Reagan… Nancy Reagan sort of pulled him back together again.”
“In his political career, here’s a man who had a strong belief in core ideas and values, that a lot of times were not very popular in the 1960s, and yet she stuck with him. It was a partnership forged in adversity. Even when people tried to sort of play to her ego,” Schweizer said, recounting an incident when Mikhail Gorbachev told her to “whisper ‘peace’ in your husband’s ear, to which she responded: “But who is whispering peace in your ear?”
Nancy Reagan “was a very savvy and astute person, and when Ronald Reagan faced opposition, sometimes even within the Republican Party itself, Nancy Reagan was there with him, and I think you could say had he not been married to such a strong, well-equipped woman for the time, you could say that American history would be different than what it is today, and world history would be different than it would be today.”
Bannon asked what what Reagan would think Nancy’s legacy would be. “She had unconditional love” for Reagan, Bannon said.
“I think that it’s two things… If you’ve not met Nancy Reagan: Very petite woman. This is not a physically imposing woman,” Schweizer said. “And yet, she had amazing strength. So it was the love, and the strength. She was always about being with Ronnie. She was not correcting Ronnie. She was not trying to undermine him. She walked with him. So I think it’s two things: It’s the unconditional love as you said, and it’s this strength that doesn’t seem to be connected to this small, petite, very elegant woman.”
Nancy Reagan passed away Sunday at the age of 94. As one obituary noted, she “considered her most important role promoting the political, physical and mental well-being of Ronald Reagan. Launching one of history’s most extraordinary partnerships with their 1952 marriage, she became his closest advisor, wielding her influence to defend his interests and advance his goals.”
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