Reagan Radio Commentaries

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After leaving the governorship of California, Ronald Reagan had a number of options available to him. One of these was the opportunity to have a radio show. He would take the show and run with it for nearly five years, taking a 9-month break during 1976 while he ran for president as a primary challenge to Gerald Ford. After failing to gain the nomination, he returned to the radio show. In all, he would give over 1000 radio broadcasts, roughly 60% written by him.

Early on in their broadcast history, they were called "Viewpoint with Ronald Reagan" but later called the "Reagan Radio Commentary".

This Wiki is an attempt to create an archive of these broadcasts. It contains broadcast information, summaries, and links to audio, if available.

Update: With this new incarnation of the Wiki, I have decided to integrate broadcast transcripts. These transcripts are being generated by speech-to-text systems, then reviewed for accuracy. If possible, they are cross-checked against those transcripts printed in the three books that are available. For broadcasts not included in one of the printed books, punctuation and paragraph structure may not be accurate. While pages for all broadcasts have been created, not all will contain transcripts. If a transcript appeared only in a book, it may or may not end up here eventually, but I may be able to include relevant research links.

Reagan's hand-written notes and records of the commentaries can be found at the Stanford's Hoover Institution. Your humble administrator has begun slowly purchasing MP3s of the recordings available from the Hoover Institute to continue his research. However, Hoover Institute has a cap on how much of the collection may be purchased. I was told via email it is 10%, but they allowed my last order to go through and I ended up with about 22%. Including the other episodes available, I have about 30% of the collection.

On February 23, 2020, author Paul Batura wrote an article for Foxnews.com entitled Ronald Reagan warned us about Bernie Sanders – over 40 years ago in which he referenced several Radio Commentaries, specifically Socialism (76-06-B6 and repeated 77-23-A3), Freedom (77-22-B6), Junk Food (76-08-B5). I reached out on Twitter to thank him.

Reagan Broadcast Years 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Other Resources Books about or containing Broadcasts Some collections include Reagan-read Promotional Cuts Dean's Place, September 1975 Mr. and Mrs. Reagan appear and Reagan talks about having a new radio show.

Broadcasts: By The Numbers 1058 total broadcasts 215 in 1975 102 in 1976 177 in 1977 256 in 1978 218 in 1979 1027 given by Reagan 673 known to be written by Reagan 337 transcripts available in Reagan's Path to Victory 237 transcripts available in Reagan in His Own Hand 34 transcripts available in Stories in His Own Hand (5 unique) 88 broadcasts available on Reagan in His Own Voice audio book 21 broadcasts available on Reagan's Path to Victory audio CD 10 broadcasts available on the 1978 LP record set "Ronald Reagan On the Air" 17 known repeated broadcasts (15 in 77-23) 14 written and recorded by guests Pat Buchanan Maureen Reagan (daughter) William F. Buckley Julie Eisenhower-Nixon Nancy Reagan