I just picked up The Reagan Diaries and I'm anxious to dig into it. I'm impressed by the sheer volume of the entries. He never missed a single day of journaling the entire time he was in the White House except for when he was in the hospital. He ended up with five hardbound handwritten journals. Every time I hear about Reagan's writing legacy I marvel. He didn't mind writing his own speeches or radio broadcasts, and often did so. He also often answered his own mail. In 1981, he began a letter to a citizen this way, "You specified that you wanted to hear from me personally, so here I am." His legacy of personal letter writing is astounding.
He wrote enough letters to his wife Nancy to fill an entire book after his death. Another book, called Reagan: A Life in Letters, contains more than 1,000 of his personal letters from 1922 to 1994 to world leaders, citizens, journalists, pundits, and many others. Yet another book called Dear Americans: Letters from the Desk of Ronald Reagan contains the best of 3,500 personal letters that Reagan wrote while he was in the White House.
Makes you want to pull out an ink pen and start writing doesn't it? It sure has that affect on me.
