Author’s Foreword

This book is the story of the feelings and the fantasies that we shared in Reagan’s America.

My main goal has been to show why it is that in politics – as in our personal lives – the conditions which we deplore are so often those which we unconsciously desire, often bringing upon ourselves some of our most painful historical events.

An understanding of why this should be so requires some patience on the part of the reader. Because the book is the result of the analysis of thousands of documents, a certain amount of evidence must be presented before the reader can see the shared fantasies hidden in the evidence. I ask from the reader only to be patient enough to allow this evidence to begin to accumulate in the chapters that follow. Before long, the patterns will make sense, even when they contradict common opinion as to our motives during the Reagan years.

For it is not difficult to describe what happened in Reagan’s America. It is only difficult to believe that we wanted it that way.