FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Cassie Dendurent,

Edited, with an introduction and commentary by

Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson

Foreword by George P. Shultz

Ronald Reagan was a prolific letter-writer his entire life, corresponding on a broad range of subjects with friends and family, statesmen, Hollywood celebrities, children, and ordinary citizens alike. Taken together, his letters reveal his character and thinking like no other source. Candid, thoughtful, and often surprising, they show a man who treasured his friends, took his critics head-on, and loved his family deeply.

Unexpectedly intimate and unselfconscious, Reagan’s letters cover everything from his home and family to his health, from his years in Hollywood to his core beliefs and thoughts on economic and domestic policy, from the media to terrorism and the Iran-Contra scandal. Among the many surprises:

• over 30 years of correspondence with Richard Nixon, who first wrote to Reagan in 1959 to compliment him on a speech (see p. 702 ff);
• letters to Ruddy Hines, Reagan’s White House pen pal who was six years old when they began exchanging letters in 1984 (see p. 788 ff);
• crucial letters on the end of the Cold War, to Soviet leaders (see p. 739 ff);
• letters revealing Reagan’s most intimate thoughts on love and sex (e.g. p. 139);
• extraordinary letters to his children (e.g. pp. 52, 56);
• as well as letters to Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Dwight Eisenhower, and hundreds of others. In addition, the editors reveal that many of Reagan’s earliest Hollywood fan letters were not written by him, including several years of letters to his eventual longtime pen-pal, Lorraine Wagner.

In addition to tracking down many letters that had been in private hands, Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson also obtained exclusive access to the Reagan PresidentialLibrary’s archive collections and the Office of Ronald Reagan that had not previously been opened to the public or other scholars (the full set of sources is described on p. 838 ff). Transcribed from the original handwritten drafts, which were typed before he signed and sent them, most of these letters would have vanished from our nation’s history if the drafts hadn’t been saved.

With keen insight from editors Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson placing the letters in context, REAGAN: A Life in Letters is a monumental look at Ronald Reagan’s personal and public life and the times in which he lived.

Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson edited the New York Times bestseller Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America (Free Press, 2001) and Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan (Free Press, 2001). Kiron K. Skinner is an assistant professor of history and social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She lives in Pittsburgh. Annelise Anderson is a Hoover Institution fellow. She served in the Reagan White House as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. Martin Anderson is the Keith and Jan Hurlbut Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was President Reagan’s economic and domestic policy advisor. The Andersons live in Portola Valley, California. George P. Shultz was Secretary of State during the Reagan Administration. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Foreword by George P. Shultz

Published by Free Press

Publication date: September 23, 2003

Sub rights: First serial excerpt sold to Time magazine; Conservative Book Club Main Selection

CONFIRMED MEDIA: This Week with George Stephanopoulos (September 21), Good Morning America (September 22), The Early Show (September 23)

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