Three Qualities That Made Reagan Great

During my nine years in the White House, I had the good fortune to work for three presidents—Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and, for the last four, Ronald Reagan, whom I served as national security adviser. The stewardship of these three men included high achievement—ending the Vietnam War, reopening ties with China, accelerating the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. There were also episodes of failure, such as President Nixon's breach of the public trust that led to his resignation.

Anyone given the opportunity to observe and contribute to presidential decision-making—especially during a period of such turmoil and triumph—will reflect on the personal qualities that led presidents either to victory or defeat. As I look back on my years with President Reagan, who would have turned 100 this Feb. 6, three deeply rooted dimensions of his character stand out and in my opinion enabled his extraordinary success.

The first was his rock-solid commitment to American values—our sense of right and wrong; our tolerance for risk; our respect for and sense of obligation to neighbors, community and country; and our compassion toward those less fortunate.

Second was a combination of integrity and political courage—the commitment to do the right thing regardless of its potential impact on his personal political fortunes. Consider two examples. The first involved the threat in 1981 by the air traffic controllers to walk off the job in contravention of the Taft-Hartley Act. The president saw immediately that this was a matter of law, duty and assuring public safety. He fired them, although more than a few aides cautioned against inflaming organized labor and believed that he would pay a price in the next election cycle.

A second example involved his decision in 1983 to reorient U.S. nuclear strategy away from the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction—the concept that we could deter nuclear war by being able to withstand an enemy first strike and still be able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other side. Reagan believed such a strategy was immoral and would ultimately lead to the annihilation of humankind.

He decided to fundamentally recast U.S. strategy toward protecting Americans by emphasizing defense not offense, with the ultimate goal of rendering nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. Today the development of defense against ballistic missiles has become accepted wisdom. Yet in 1983, Reagan was assailed by critics who claimed that his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as “Star Wars,” was too risky, too costly and wouldn't work.

All of these critics—men and women of experience and legitimate standing (including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher)—were affronted that the president would move away from something that, however dangerous and immoral, had in their view worked. The president stood his ground and won.

Perhaps the best testimony to the brilliance of Reagan's faith in SDI comes from Russians who served in the Kremlin at the time. In 1992, Vladimir Lukin, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S, told me that “Your Star Wars initiative accelerated our collapse by at least five years.” To stand against the almost universal tide of criticism from respected senators and nuclear strategists—and prevail—required enormous courage and political skill.

Which leads us to the third quality that is essential for a successful presidency: the ability to inspire confidence and earn the public's support. Pundits often note that Reagan was a “great communicator,” a throw-away line that trivializes a president's ability to explain his policies to the American people and inspire confidence in them because he truly believed they were right for the country.

Think back to Vietnam. Put simply, we lost a war because our presidents couldn't convince Americans that there were sound reasons for the war and that they had a strategy that would win it. As someone who commanded a unit in the first landing of U.S. combat forces in Vietnam in 1965, and then 10 years later spent the final hours handling communications between the West Wing and our ambassador in Saigon as we withdrew in defeat, I believe that our presidents failed us. We are a democracy. Presidents have an obligation (leave aside a self-interest) to develop popular support. If they can't do that, their policies will inevitably fail.

Stemming from his first quality—belief in American values and our political heritage—Reagan believed strongly that he had an obligation to be straight with Americans. And he always was. Other presidents possessed a belief in our core values, and occasionally political courage, and sometimes the ability to take their case to the American people and inspire confidence among them that together we would succeed. Ronald Reagan possessed all three. What a blessing.

Mr. McFarlane served as President Reagan's national security adviser (1983-85), as President Ford's special assistant for national security affairs (1976-77), and as military assistant to Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft in the Nixon administration. He is currently a member of the Leadership Council at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.