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When someone pointed TO the "look what you made him do" nature of Reagan's response to MLK's assassination, I googled the quote I used in NIXOLAND, ''a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd break," AND
I found a fresh new historical document! A transcript of Regan's speech the day after MLK's assassination to the Women's National Press Club (an aside: the club for women reporters WHO WEREN'T ALLOWED TO JOIN THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB)...
He opens in his usual jocular tone, with no indication of the gravity of the events unfolding across the nation, then launches into a whine about the number of people on welfare, and boasts about the humanitarianism of his anti-poverty polices...
Then finally moves to the matter that's top of mind, and the money quote: "Whatever your opinion of Martin Luther King, whether you approved or disapproved, our nation died a little last night also"; [WE'RE the victims, in other words]
"It started dying and his murder began with our first acceptance of compromise with the law";
"That compromise ranges from our indifference when some would apply the law unequally to some of our fellow citizens" [It's really the fault of the reverse-racing of liberals bending over backward to excuse Black criminality]
"...to those who today, black or white, say it is up to us as individuals to decide which laws will be obeyed and which laws broken." [And there it is: MLK was responsible for his own death. It was, after all, ILLEGAL to eat at a white lunch counter.]
It goes on; I recommend reading it all. It's a quintessential performance of what I call RWR's "liturgy of innocence," his masterful ability to comfort the comfortable that it is they, in fact, who have the best interests of the afflicted at heart.
(Citation: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collection, sReagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers, 1966-74: Press Unit, Folder Title: Speeches – Governor Ronald.)
Digital Library Collection, sReagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers, 1966-74: Press Unit, Folder Title: Speeches – Governor Ronald.)
(I can't close without calling the goofball who, reviewing my previous book, savaged me for using sources found online, finding it “intellectually lazy.")
