Fairy Tales

He wasn't just April Fool-ing; he said the stuff all the time.

Just a small sampling, from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor: A Chronicle of the American '80s—

[1982]

2/24 Addressing the Voice of America's 40th birthday celebration, President Reagan reminisces about making up exciting details while announcing baseball games from wire copy.

"Now, I submit to you that I told the truth," he says of his enhanced version of a routine shortstop-to-first ground out. "I don't know whether he really ran over toward second base and made a one-hand stab or whether he just squatted down and took the ball when it came to him. But the truth got there and, in other words, it can be attractively packaged."

No one questions his premise that embellishing the truth does not compromise it.

10/31 Accusing his foes of "cruel scare tactics," President Reagan attacks the "big spenders" for causing inflation, adding, "They even drove prayer out of our nation's classrooms." A White House aide refuses to clarify whom Reagan is talking about, saying only, "They know who they are."

[1983]

3/5 "There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge."
—President Reagan revealing a little-known "fact" to Oregon lumbermen

7/20 House Majority Leader Jim Wright recalls a conversation in which President Reagan voiced his suspicions about student loans: " 'Well, Jim, I don't know,' he said. 'They tell me that a lot of these kids are taking out these loans and putting them in CDs [certificates of deposit] and not even going to college.' "

[1984]

2/26 "They tell me I'm the most powerful man in the world. I don't believe that. Over there in that White House someplace, there's a fellow that puts a piece of paper on my desk every day that tells me what I'm going to be doing every 15 minutes. He's the most powerful man in the world."
—President Reagan on an unidentified aide

3/9 Defending his failure to attend church, President Reagan piously observes, "Frankly, I miss it very much. But I represent too much of a threat to too many other people for me to be able to go to church." But, why does he not hold services in the White House, as previous Presidents have done? No one asks.