"...there is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - January 21, 1981

Ronald Reagan

"We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look." - Janurary 20, 1981

"In America, our origins matter less than our destination, and that is what democracy is all about." - August 17, 1992

"Peace through Strength"

Now they recognise Reagan's greatness

By Andrew Sullivan- February 4 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. The Sunday Times

He seems, in some respects, a historical oddity now, his political and cultural presence obscured by the Clinton psychodrama and the Bush dynasty. But his successors do not begin to compare - either in achievement or legacy. Reagan is still, in my view, the architect of our modern world.

Reagan stood for two simple but indisputably big things: the expansion of freedom at home and the extinction of tyranny abroad. He achieved both. When he came to office, top tax rates in the United States were 70%. Against the odds, Reagan slashed the top rate to 28% and ignited the economic boom that is still with us.

But unlike George W Bush, and certainly unlike the hopelessly confused Michael Portillo, Reagan understood what tax cuts were about. Back in 1976, he made the case in one of his innumerable radio addresses:

"Our system freed the individual genius of man. We allocate resources not by goverment decision but by the millions of decisions customers make when they go into the market place. If something seems too high-priced, we buy something else. So resources are steered toward those things people want most at the price they are willing to pay."

Classic Reagan. Simple. Intelligible. True. Some people believe he was a moron, incapable of intellectual engagement. A brief perusal through his dozens of addresses will put the lie to that. He grappled directly and bravely with the main issues of his day. He was a believer in the media as a way to communicate ideas that could change lives. In this sense, he was one of the most intellectual presidents in history.

If he was right about taxation and the role of government, he was also right about the other great question of his day: the Soviet Union.

I will never forget the moment I heard his "evil empire" speech. It was broadcast on Radio 4, with sceptical British commentary about this inflammatory new president who knew nothing about the complexities of late communism. But for all the criticism, what came through to my teenage brain was an actual truth. Yes, the Soviet Union was evil. Who now doubts that?

He alone saw that communism was destined to be put on the "ash-heap of history", as he told the House of Commons. And he helped put it there.

Think of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. In the 1980s, they were nuclear freeze supporters. And yet both now thoughtlessly enjoy the soft and easy fruits of a greater man's courage.

The critics harp on the enormous deficits of the Reagan era, but the truth is that federal revenues boomed on Reagan's watch. What created the deficits was an unprecedented increase in defence spending - the bargaining chip that eventually forced the Soviets to surrender.

You could easily argue that this was a price worth paying for an early end to an expensive conflict. Even the straggling defenders of perestroika now concede that Reagan's intransigence speeded the collapse of the Soviet empire. The deficits were therefore a fiscal bargain.

And on most of the current pressing issues, Reaganism still has plenty of credibility. The main cloud on the fiscal horizon - the long-term insolvency of the government-run pension system - stems from a programme Reagan opposed.

The end of the federal welfare entitlement was also presaged by Reagan. In the early 1970s, when he was governor of California, he alone opposed the question of whether to federalise that entitlement. It took 30 years and Bill Clinton to recognise finally the validity of Reagan's point.

Reagan's unlikeliest dream - nuclear missile defence - is also still with us. Lampooned as "star wars", it will soon regain the pre-eminence it deserves in America's military defence, as Donald Rumsfeld aggressively moves it forward.

The contrast with Clinton couldn't be clearer. Clinton was a group-hugger, obsessed with the press, fixated on spin, devoted to polls. Reagan was aloof, distant even from his own family, focused on a few important themes and delegating everything else.

He was devoted to his second wife with a romantic zeal, wore a coat and tie at all times in the Oval Office, a room he considered sacred; he was also pricelessly funny. As he was wheeled into the operating room after a bullet almost took his life, he looked at the solemn, green-suited doctors and said: "Please tell me you're Republicans."

A natural populist, Reagan spent hours handwriting letters to obscure pen pals he had befriended in the past, never dreaming he was too important to ignore such tasks of courtesy. He was a democrat to his fingertips who didn't need a "common touch" because he was so effortlessly a common man himself.

It takes time to recognise greatness and it sometimes appears in the oddest of forms. When he dies, this country will go into shock. For Americans know in their hearts that this unlikely man understood the deepest meaning of their country in a way nobody else has done for a generation.