Here's the true believer's account of the Reagan administration from a man who owed his entire political life to the fate of Ronald Reagan. Although his father served 50 years in county government, Meese was surprisingly apolitical until appointed California Governor Reagan's legal advisor in late 1966 and then chief of staff in 1969. The pattern reappeared in 1980, when he became White House counselor and then the U.S. attorney general in 1985. Meese's ebullient and dichotomous approach to politics surfaces in his defense of the Reagan administration. Unwaveringly, he credits Reagan alone with the demise of Soviet Communism and the restoration of economic vitality at home, while he blames the media, Congress, and liberals for various shortcomings. Reagan fans will love this book, while critics may wonder what California does to produce the Reagan-Meese fantasy. Although a necessary memoir of the Reagan era, it needs to be balanced by Kevin Phillips's The Politics of Rich and Poor ( LJ 5/15/90). Previewed in ``On the Campaign Book Trail,'' LJ 3/15/ 92, p. 110-112 . -- William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ ., Shreveport (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Except for James Baker, reputedly the suavest leaker in Washington, all of Reagan's lieutenants have now proffered their reflections on the revolution wrought by their boss. Meese staunchly aligns himself with the defenders of the fortieth president and his conservative causes, taking issue with staffers, like Baker and David Stockman, who were more attuned to Beltway processes (like leaking) than to pushing the Gipper's policies. Meese himself, of course, wears his Reaganite credentials on his sleeve: an early associate from California days, he was Governor Reagan's point player for law-and-order issues like campus riots and capital punishment. At the White House, his portfolio was somewhat wider but still essentially legalistic, hence the depersonalized-advocacy tone to this work. His introductory claim is right: this is not a memoir per se (which he might write next time) but a formally stiff defense of both Reagan and some of the controversies his decisions ignited. Charged by hostile pundits with mental vapidity and low intellectual candlepower, Reagan eschewed detail, Meese admits, but his puruit of the big picture was preferable to Carter's technocratic approach. The lawerly sequence of writing is also applied to the issues surrounding the president: the alleged "October surprise" of 1980, the tax cuts of 1981, the tax hikes of 1982 (Reagan's worst mistake in office, he says), the bolstering of the military, the invasion of Grenada, Nicaragua, the (im?)propriety of congressional interventions in foreign policy, and the Iran-contra furor. The key to his version of the latter is that the approach to Iran was intended to be a one-shot, two-month operation. Ollie's "neat idea" of stringing it out and skimming profits for other purposes was, he admits, a bad political idea but hardly worthy of criminal or unconstitutional labels. On these and other matters Meese is a zealous defender of Reagan's policies, often from the standpoint of executive prerogatives, a specialization that might attenuate wide public interest. Stiff and formal as Meese's apologia may be, it offers a serious alternative to the Kitty Kelley litter that adorns most library shelves, and until Jimbo Baker tells all, this is the last chance we all have to see Reagan from the perspective of his closest advisers. (Reviewed May 15, 1992)0895265222Gilbert Taylor

One's reading of this will likely be determined by one's political orientation, for the former attorney general pulls out all the stops here: he contends that President Reagan not only led the longest peacetime period of economic expansion in the history of our nation, but also spearheaded the cause of liberty to an unprecedented victory over the forces of oppression. Meese's stated purpose in writing the book is to counter the ``blatant attempt to distort the impact of Reagan's leadership and to derogate or deny his accomplishments.'' Prominent among the latter, in his view, were fighting inflation, rebuilding America's defenses, reducing taxes, and almost singlehandedly winning the Cold War. Meese presents an arguable explanation of the Iran-Contra affair, maintaining that the administration was guilty of ``bad procedure'' but not illegality. He reports that Reagan and Vice President Bush were ``shocked and surprised'' when Meese informed them of the diversion of funds to the Contras. Serious mistakes were made, he allows, by men who in their zeal to advance legitimate national interests took steps that were both unauthorized and unwise. Photos. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved