King: America’s Financial Tombstone

Let’s revisit The Copper State to see what else we can find. September 06, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( America’s Financial Tombstone SEAN RING There’s nothing like reading my good friend and colleague’s work in the Rude. But when the inimitable Byron King asks me if I fancy seconds, I say, “Yes, please!” Yesterday, he wrote a masterful essay on Reagan, the new movie the MSM is doing its best to ignore or downplay. Today, Byron follows up on [his well-received copper article]( from last week with this peach of an essay about Tombstone, Arizona. It’s the namesake of one of my favorite movies, but I had no idea exactly how rich its history is. I fly home from Frankfurt while you’re reading this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. See you on Monday! All the best, Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening BYRON KING America’s Financial Tombstone “The only rock you’ll find out there will be your tombstone,” said Army scout Al Sieber to his fellow serviceman Ed Schieffelin. It was 1876, and the two soldiers were dodging the hard-fighting Apache of southeast Arizona in what is now Cochise County. Schieffelin nodded to his colleague and smiled. He mounted his horse, rode off into the desolate scrublands, and in due course located a silver deposit that helped finance the American economy in the 1880s, during an era known today as the Gilded Age. Ed Schieffelin, Army scout and silver prospector. Courtesy Tombstonetimes.com. The Election of 2024 Hold that thought about Ed Schieffelin and his Arizona silver. We’ll return to him in a moment, but right now, obviously, it’s election season with two months yet to come of over-the-top campaigning and plenty of dodgy voting. And in this issue of Strategic Intelligence, Jim Rickards and my other colleagues discuss politics and how to protect and grow your wealth in a time of turmoil and uncertainty. Absolutely, it matters whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next president. Beyond any shadow of doubt, it’s critical who sets policy within the high castles of the U.S. government. Truly, it matters who appoints what kinds of people to positions of federal power that shape the social and economic development of the nation. Again and again, for many years now, we’ve heard Trump’s signature phrase, a promise to Make America Great Again. Heck, I’d settle to Make America “America” Again. That is, were the 1980s and 1990s really all that bad? Hey, just make the place less hyperbolically crazy in terms of sociology, and less dangerous such that people actually get along with each other. And perhaps we should strive to Make America Governable Again; not a dysfunctional, faux-democratic political entity held together by little more than the inertia of government spending with depreciating dollars. How about that? I know… We could discuss these matters all day, but not now. Instead, let’s focus on one key issue: what can you do – and I mean YOU, the subscriber here – in a country with a national debt of $35 trillion, growing at about $2.5 trillion per year? As you surely know, the federal government is deep in debt. Interest payments are huge and growing fast, with, for example, more money paid out annually to cover bond coupons than to fund the Defense Department. So, is the country really broke? Insolvent? Are we on the cusp of a currency crisis? Based on bookkeeping and accounting principles, it’s no longer outrageous to wonder whether or not we’re in the last days of the late, great United States, no matter who is president. The former Soviet Union collapsed; could that happen here? This brings us back to the above-noted Army scout Ed Schieffelin and his explorations in Arizona not quite 150 years ago. Skeptics thought that he would find nothing of value other than his tombstone. So, at least allegorically, is it time for America to chisel some dates into a hunk of rock and compose a pithy epitaph? Looking ahead, what happens next? Where do we go? Back Then, the Wealth Really Was Out There Well, for a few moments, let’s travel back in U.S. history to the decades after the Civil War, when the country rebuilt what was destroyed and built itself out anew and in new ways. Generally speaking, any nation’s growth and prosperity is based on how well, and to what extent people and businesses create wealth. That is, people take raw or semi-finished materials and transform it to a higher state. In other words, they add value. It’s called “making stuff.” In the 19th century, much of America’s development and growth was based on people making stuff by exploiting the country’s vast store of high-grade primary resources. For example, consider how people harvested timber from forests that had never been cut, plowed land that had never been farmed, dammed waterways that had never been harnessed, and dug up minerals and ore deposits that had never been touched. All this and more. Yes, by modern standards, much of this historic resource exploitation was crude, to the point of brutal. There’s no need for reminders or snarky lectures about what happened to Native Americans, to ecosystems, and entire environments. We weren’t there. And we’re not here to highlight dark chapters of the past. That’s behind us now, and history is only useful if we are honest about it and learn from it. Meanwhile, much of that late-19th-century resource exploitation occurred in the vast American West. That is, the West was comprised of geographic and geologic regions that the U.S. acquired via the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, supplemented by other lands annexed after the Mexican War of 1846-48. You’ve probably heard of the explorations of Lewis & Clark in the early 1800s or of John Wesley Powell, who mapped the Colorado River and Grand Canyon in the 1870s. With these efforts and more, which ranged from basic birdwatching to uncovering fossilized dinosaurs, the story of the American West was a series of startling discoveries, one after another. For a superb overview of the period, see William Goetzman’s monumental, Pulitzer Prize-winning [1967] book, [Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West](. Among those intrepid explorers and scientists chronicled by the late Prof. Goetzmann, don’t neglect the routine work of humble soldiers of the U.S. Army, posted to isolated camps and lonely forts across the continent, mostly west of the Mississippi River. Again, for another great overview of the background to all of this, see Andrew Masich’s outstanding [2017] book, [Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands, 1861–1867](. In essence, from the 1840s through 1890s, the Army went about its assigned tasks out West, often as not fighting the aforementioned Apache in territories like Arizona and New Mexico, all while performing mapping and reconnaissance functions. Along the way, more than a few observant soldiers took an interest in some of the shiny minerals they saw poking out at the surface along the trails and rock faces. In many instances, the Army guys marked locations and brought specimens back to their camps and forts. To make a long story short, some of these Apache-fighting soldiers transformed into the original prospectors of the late 1800s. Either on their own or with the help of better geologic talent, they found immense resources of valuable minerals outcropping across the West, and of interest here, in southern Arizona. [“Black Pattern” Forecasting Major Market Crash]( The world’s most accurate crash indicator is flashing its most critical warning in decades. I call it "The Black Pattern". [And it is the only one that is 100% accurate at predicting a market crash.]( Ever since the 1950s… Whenever this Black Pattern has appeared, stocks have crashed – sometimes by 50% or more. And now… It’s telling us that 2024 could be the worst year you and I have ever seen for the stock market. [For full details click inside.]( The Man Who Discovered His Own Tombstone The above-mentioned Ed Schieffelin was one such soldier-prospector. By the mid-1870s, this inquisitive fellow, originally from a small town in north-central Pennsylvania, had ridden trails across the Rocky Mountains, observing things from the eyeball distance of a man on horseback. Across the West, Schlieffen saw deposits of gold, silver, copper and much more during his expeditions to Montana, down through Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Over time, he developed an innate sense of what to look for as he observed his surroundings. As fate would have it, Schieffelin was eventually posted to Arizona, where he scouted for the Army, and also examined rocks on his own account. Then one fine day in 1877, Schieffelin was surveying the San Pedro River valley, about 40 miles east of what is now the Army’s Fort Huachuca, adjacent Sierra Vista, Arizona. He found silver-bearing ore in a dry wash and began to trace the material upstream to the source, a high plateau called Goose Flats. High-grade silver ore, Goodenough Mine, Tombstone. BWK photo. Over time, Schieffelin mapped the surface traces of a massive, silver-bearing vein structure. He staked his claim, which he named “Tombstone,” recalling his Army friend's geologic skepticism. What happened next is a long story of great geology: a multimillion-year tale of ancient rocks intruded by molten magmas, which expelled fluids that carried silver, gold, copper, and more. As it all cooled and crystallized, this complex of geochemistry formed a miles-long system of high-grade, mineralized ore zones across the district. Over and above the bedrock geology, there’s a stem-winding tale of the rapid development of a mining boomtown out West. Within just a few months, Goose Flats transformed from empty, dry scrubland into a bustling camp, the town of Tombstone, filled with over 10,000 people from across America and numerous foreign lands. These new Tombstone inhabitants included about 2,500 well-paid miners and their reasonably well-paid helpers. Their daily underground work, in 10-hour shifts, was difficult to the point of backbreaking. But then, as now, people with special skills earned good pay. Tombstone miners, pounding holes for the next blast. Southernarizonaguide.com. Then there were the typical camp followers, people who tend to show up where money is being made: real estate speculators, peddlers, blacksmiths, horse thieves, bartenders, gamblers, the occasional doctor or dentist, and, of course, women who profit from being in the company of people who mine silver from the ground. In its boom days, Tombstone was a jurisdiction of both law and lawlessness, the latter such that the federal government sent Marshal Wyatt Earp down from Dodge City, Kansas to help keep the peace. And his particular story became famous, and iconic Americana, if you’ve ever heard of the legendary, 1881 “shootout at the OK Corral.” Then and Now, Where Real Money Is Made Today, Tombstone is a surprisingly nice tourist town; it’s just delightful, and I mean that with all sincerity. Give it a visit if you are ever in the vicinity. There, reenactors engage in Old West shootouts daily. Stores sell cowboy gear, much of which is made in China (no shock there). And the Longhorn Restaurant serves a great lunch at a good price. Your editor, with the reenactor who plays Marshal Wyatt Earp, Tombstone. BWK photo. All this, and just down the street from the Longhorn eatery, you can tour one of the oldest, best-preserved silver mines in the area, called the Goodenough. It’s run by a retired Air Force veteran whose attention to detail, and respect for true mining history, is second to none. Meanwhile, beneath the streets of Tombstone and adjacent acreage are over 2,000 miles of old tunnels and related shafts. For comparison, that’s about the distance from Tombstone to, say, Detroit if laid end to end. These tunnels extend laterally and also quite deep underground, to about 600 feet or more, which is not bad considering that they were hand-dug and blasted through solid rock. For a decade, from 1879 to about 1889, Tombstone was among the most productive silver mines in America. In its early years, when the highest-grade veins were exploited, Tombstone’s silver output rivaled the great Comstock Lode near Carson City, Nevada, or the massive copper-silver deposits of Butte, Montana. Later on, problems with pumping out water caused serious problems, although the upside is that there’s still a heck of a lot of silver left in the rocks. At the mouth of the mineshafts, back in the old mining days, ore went to stamping mills that crushed the rock and separated out the silver minerals. Then after a series of metallurgical treatments, high quality silver was poured into 180-pound ingots (which are hard to steal) for transport by rail straight east, across New Mexico and Texas, to the U.S. Mint at New Orleans, Louisiana. There, at the Mint, the federal government coined tens of millions of silver dollars, with the iconic “O” mark to indicate the place of origin. It was real and serious money, back then. U.S. 1881 Morgan silver dollar, New Orleans Mint; note “O” above the “Dollar” wording. Another way to say it is that when people mined silver at Tombstone, they were mining money. All that was required to turn it into official U.S. currency was to ship the ingots to the Mint, to stamp into silver dollars. And in a growing national economy, decades before anyone even dreamed of an entity called the Federal Reserve, those silver coins were the key to monetary liquidity. As for Army scout Schieffelin, instead of finding his own Tombstone, he unearthed a cornucopia of wealth in the form of metallic money, straight from the ground. He did well in life, but died in 1897 of a heart attack at the relatively young age of 50. Some Silver Investment Ideas Great story, right? A guy discovered silver, founded a mining boomtown, people got rich (although some went broke, too), and it all helped to grease the skids of commerce for a growing and productive nation. But all of this was a long time ago. It was a different world, with different standards and ways of doing things. We don’t live there anymore. Today, the U.S. government is deeply in debt. Every day/week/ month/quarter, it issues dollars by the billions, if not trillions, via electronics, not real metal. Which means, of course, that those electronic units of currency constantly lose purchasing power while specimens of real metal hold value over time. People and companies that explore for metal and moil it out of the ground are a special breed at the level of silver deposits. You just won’t find many old Army scouts doing geologic prospecting these days. But still, fear not because along these lines, we have a few ideas for you. First, you should own a store of physical silver. This includes what’s called “junk silver,” meaning bags of old, pre-1964 dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and silver dollars. These were made from about 90% silver, with some copper in the alloy for strength. And they will retain value over time as our Fed-dollars lose purchasing power. You can buy them at coin shops, on eBay, and other venues, but always check to ensure you’re dealing with a legitimate business. Also, own silver bullion of more recent mintage, such as coins, small ingots, bars, etc. If you’re new to the game, just go with straight silver bullion. Don’t get fancy, which means paying hefty markups. Do not get caught up in rare coin collecting, a field for players with much more expertise than most people possess. Stick with the basics. And then we have a few silver mining ideas for you, namely three great, well-run companies that are strongly entrenched in the overall sector. Consider Hecla Mining (HL), with a market cap of over $3 billion; Coeur Mining (CDE), with a market cap of about $2.4 billion; and First Majestic Silver (AG), with a market cap of about $1.6 billion. These companies are well known and associated with silver mining. The share prices and market caps rise and fall with the silver price, which should be a good thing in the months and years to come as the dollar deteriorates and silver retains its value. And of course, many other companies work in the silver space, ranging from small cap explorers and developers to other silver giants. Sorry, but there are way too many to list here. The takeaway point of all this is that once, long ago, silver and real wealth came straight from the ground. Converted to currency, it formed the foundation to American prosperity, but this was back in a different era of history, society and of course politics. Today, it’s a different world. As you surely know, the U.S. is in a bitter, internal fight over the future of the country. One way or the other, whoever becomes the next president in 2025, the country is overleveraged and of course, deeply in debt. To protect your own wealth, and to seek gains in the months and years ahead, you should have some exposure to silver, both physical metal and mining shares. The companies named above are not part of the official Strategic Intelligence portfolio, and we won’t track them over time. Still, be assured that I watch the news and share price performance. Plus, I follow developments in silver markets and with related mining companies. Of course, I’ll report to you if I have any breaking news in the silver (or gold) space. So, watch the charts, buy shares on down days, and never chase momentum. With that, I’ll end here and wish you well during the upcoming election season, and far beyond. Thank you for subscribing and reading. Best wishes… All the best, Byron W. King Contributing Editor Rate this email Like Dislike Thanks for rating this content! Looks like something went wrong. Please try to rate again. In Case You Missed It… Reagan: A Movie Review Ronald W. Reagan, 40th President. Courtesy Reagan Library. BYRON KING “So, did you meet President Reagan?” It was back in the 1980s. I was speaking with another Navy officer. We were both on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). And she had been invited to attend a state dinner at the White House. State dinners are a big deal, any time and under any administration. An invitation to an event like that is a rare ticket in Washington, D.C. Even within the ethereal realms of the highest echelons of the U.S. Navy, more than a few admirals took an interest in the matter; as in, they were not invited to the White House, and their Pentagon survival instincts were to be cognizant of a subordinate who was. To be blunt, this was not just a good-looking gal out on date night. As a serving Naval officer, this woman was under a professional microscope. Her job was to attend that fancy dinner, look sharp, and leave a very good impression of the Navy with our boss, the President of the United States. As you can probably imagine, my Navy colleague spent several weeks getting her formal “mess dress” uniform into shape: tailored, cleaned, pressed, new ribbons and insignia. And she spoke with experts on protocol. Come showtime, there could not be a thread out of place, not a word out of line, right? And now it was the day after, and I wanted a debrief. How did it go? “Yes, I met President Reagan,” she replied. “But it was so embarrassing.” Whoa! “Umm… what happened,” I inquired. And hold that thought… Let’s Go to the Movies If you haven’t yet guessed from the title and opening paragraphs, today we’ll discuss Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 – 2004), the 40th President and the subject of a recently released movie entitled, appropriately enough, Reagan. Dennis Quaid plays the Gipper, and in one man’s opinion – yes, mine! – he knocks the proverbial ball out of the park. First, though, you may not have heard that a new movie about President Reagan is out. Mainstream media has been quiet about this, except for a few reviews that pan the film. For example, a critic for the Saturday Evening Post wrote of Reagan: “A shamelessly adoring biopic that is single-handedly rescued from worshipful ignominy by its star, Dennis Quaid, who stubbornly chips through the script’s plaster façade to offer glimpses of a man who spent his entire career concealing his complexities.” In a similar vein, and characteristically poison penned regarding all things Reaganesque, the New York Times labels Reagan as an “unabashed love letter to former president Ronald Reagan, (in which) Dennis Quaid fights the Cold War with conviction.” Per the Times, Reagan is “a plodding film, more curious than compelling.” Yeah, right. The movie sucks, they say. But what do you expect? Blah-blah-blah. Critics gotta do their thing. Lefties have always hated Reagan. And even more important, we’re in the midst of a presidential campaign. No Progressive-Woke media mainstreamer (sorry to repeat myself) wants to highlight anything to do with Reagan in general, or his eight-year presidency in particular. Then again, in my moviegoing experience the other night, when the show ended almost everyone in the packed theater – that is, a live audience of normal-looking people who paid real money and bought tickets – remained in their seat through the credits, and some even applauded. And these days, who applauds in a movie theater? So, perhaps there’s something worth seeing and learning in this new Reagan movie. Yes, Reagan Was a Complex Man The movie is over two hours long, and despite the length it illustrates the difficulty of distilling a 93-year lifetime into a tale that can be told on the silver screen. A “plaster façade,” says one critic? Or “plodding,” says another? Hey, people write thick books about Ronald Reagan and barely scratch the surface. Yes, he was a complex guy in many ways; most U.S. presidents are. Meanwhile, the movie's structure is intriguing, styled as a biography. That is, the viewer learns the Reagan story via flashbacks and jump-aheads, narrated by John Voight. And of even more interest, Voight plays a retired Soviet KGB agent, now living out his elderly days in Moscow. The man’s career as an intelligence officer involved surveilling Reagan, dating from Hollywood in the late 1940s and onwards. In other words, in this movie, Reagan’s story is told by a KGB guy who spent his career working to track, follow, and understand him. And to me, at least, that Soviet angle is intriguing. Because, from what I know of Soviet espionage during the Cold War (and yes, I know a few things), it’s entirely believable that the KGB assigned one or more agents to monitor Reagan, starting early because Soviet intelligence was nothing if not thorough. In fact, for most of its history, the Soviet foreign intelligence apparatus deployed modest-sized armies of smart, well-trained people stationed at home and across the world. Their assignments were to follow important people in the West and gather information, if not recruit them to the Soviet cause. Targets ranged from top-ranked scientists and engineers to business executives, politicians and more; hey, even movie personalities. On a personal level, I once met a guy named John Craven, now deceased, but at the time a retired senior scientist for the Navy. His contributions to national defense included advanced submarine technology, among many other things. He told me about meeting his “Soviet shadow” at several conferences during the course of his career. As for Reagan, well, from the late 1940s, he was active in the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG), and a role like that mattered to the Soviets based on a Hollywood angle that goes back to the 1930s. That is, over many decades, Soviet intelligence worked diligently to penetrate the motion picture sector of American mass communication. In short, the movie biz has long played a key role in shaping American, and even global, culture via themes and messages that scriptwriters and producers place into the content. So of course, the KGB would have followed Reagan from the early days, partly because he was an important player in the SAG union, and also because Reagan was ardently anti-communist. [Man Who Predicted Biden's Drop Out In October Issues Shocking New Election Prediction]( Man Who Predicted Biden's Drop Out In October Issues Shocking New Election Prediction After calling Biden's withdraw, former White House advisor Jim Rickards issues an even more shocking election warning... [Watch This Video to Learn More]( The Origins of Reagan Reagan, the movie, dwells at no small length on its subject’s youth, upbringing, and young adulthood. We see scenes of young Ron and his loving mother, along with no-holds-barred accounts of Ron coping with the self-destructive antics of his father, a raging alcoholic. Up on the screen, there’s Ronnie, a precocious kid who could quickly memorize poetry. Then came Lifeguard Reagan, the savior of many from drowning in a river that flowed past his hometown of Dixon, Illinois. From his perch on the tall chair, Reagan “learned to read the currents of the river,” as he described one of his talents much later in life; a trait, by the way, that helped change the world when he negotiated over nuclear weapons with his Soviet counterparts. Also in the movie, we see Reagan in church and then being baptized. These scenes highlight a devoutly Christian element to the man, one that has long been underappreciated. Then there’s Reagan at Eureka College, where, in one scene, he invites two black football players into his home when the local hotel refuses to host them for a night. Then comes young Reagan in one of his early jobs as a radio broadcaster, filling the air with his sonorous voice. Eventually, there’s Reagan, the aspiring movie actor whose career was interrupted by Army service during World War II. In short, there’s plenty of moviemaking about young Reagan, all of which helps explain where he was coming from later in life. Had time and circumstances allowed, in this already longish film, it might have been useful to explain how the young man came of age in the 1920s, when the U.S. had a hard-money, small-government, balanced-budget, pro-working-man president in Calvin Coolidge. And to be sure, deep down, to the end of his days, Reagan was always a 1920s-style gold bug. Also, the film might have better clarified Reagan’s career if it explained how, in 1937, he enlisted in the Army Reserve. In Reagan’s case, he was assigned to a real live horse cavalry unit, which meant that he had to learn how to ride one of those beasts. And as life unfolded, it helped immensely that Reagan possessed those well-honed equine skills, certainly in his cowboy movies and even in politics. (In 1982, [Reagan rode with Queen Elizabeth II]( The Issue of Our Time “I’m curious, Ron. What would you say is the issue of our time,” asked one California power broker of Reagan back in 1963. It’s a key scene in the movie, to be sure. They were sizing up the middle aged movie actor for what became his second career. “No question about it,” replied Reagan. “Communism and the Soviet Union.” “Get in the game. Run for office,” the man told Reagan. And the rest… is history. Well, it’s a lot of history! With many astonishing stories to tell of Reagan the politician. And this movie reflects the sad necessity of editorial culling, by which scriptwriters and director had to cherry pick scenes from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. And of those vignettes we see, many – most – are Reagan’s most famous lines: “We win, they lose,” for example. And, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The movie offers but a glimpse of Reagan’s famous [“Time for Choosing” speech]( in 1964. It’s well worth watching in its entirely, but one key Reagan line that ought to be carved in stone is this: “If we lose freedom here (in the U.S.), there’s no place to escape. This is the last stand on earth.” Then chronologically, the film broadly describes Reagan’s campaign for governor of California, and his two terms in Sacramento. The focus is on how the then-guv stood up to out-of-control college campus protesters. Ah, the good old days, yes? Meanwhile, much of Reagan’s California story was left on the cutting room floor. Ask anyone who experienced the Golden State in the 1960s, and they’re more than likely to recall with great fondness a long-lost Shangri-La. Think of a jurisdiction of boundless beauty, with a strong economy, thriving middle class, good overall public safety, great roads, excellent public schools and nearly-free college tuition. Yes, that California; not this current mess out West. Another item mentioned in the film, but left unexplored, was Reagan’s 1976 presidential run against incumbent Gerold Ford, a tight race which Reagan lost. It might have helped the movie to resurrect just a snippet or two of Reagan’s [fabulous speech]( to the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. Because then and there, he demonstrated to the party, and to millions of Americans across the dark plains of the Republic, that he was a man with clear vision contra Soviet communism. Indeed, I recall how, post-convention in 1976, more than a few Republicans realized that, with then-President Ford, the party had nominated the wrong guy. Yet despite this, there was Reagan, back for more in 1980, and then his massive win over the lamentable incumbent, Jimmy Carter; followed four years later by the 49-to-1 landslide state electoral victory over Walter Mondale. The Warmth of His Hand I could go on, but why be a spoiler? Go see the movie. It’s worth your time. If you lived through the Reagan era, it’ll bring back memories. If you missed it, you might learn a few things. Which brings me back to my Navy officer friend and her state dinner at the White House. How did it go? What happened? Well, as I recall the debrief, about two days before the state dinner she was nervous and didn’t eat or drink much. She became dehydrated. And on the evening of the event, there she was, resplendent in Navy formal attire, standing with her escort to meet President and Mrs. Reagan in the receiving line of the main ballroom. When she was about five feet away from Reagan, in all the excitement and bustle, she began to feel dizzy and was about to faint. Seemingly out of nowhere, a couple of White House aides came to her assistance, and she was hustled into a side room. “And there I was,” she explained to me. “Sitting in that room, ready to die. I mean, I just missed my chance to shake the hand of the U.S. President in a reception line. Navy-wise, I thought I would be transferred to Adak, Alaska and be the officer in charge of keeping seagulls off the runway up there.” And then, what happened? “I sat there, head down, staring at the carpet, shaking my head. And a shadow loomed over me. I looked up. It was President Reagan. He had asked the Secret Service what happened in the line, and they explained. So after he finished greeting guests, he walked into the room where I was seated. He asked if I was alright.” Okay, dear readers, are you still with me? Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, went out of his way to check up on a guest he observed to have a problem at his state dinner. And wait, there’s more! “Let’s go get our picture taken,” said Reagan to the young Naval officer. “And,” she said, “Reagan reached down and took me by the arm. I remember that his hand was so warm. He escorted me back into the ballroom. I was side-by-side, arm-in-arm with the President, walking across the floor of the White House ballroom to my table, in front of about 300 guests, with the Marine Band playing the accompaniment.” Hollywood dreams, anyone? And no, that story didn’t make it into the Reagan movie. But it embodies Reagan’s basic humanity, as much as those legendary tales about him staring down Soviet arms negotiators over nuclear missiles and working to prevent the world from blowing itself up in a global war. That’s all for now, other than – again – to recommend that you go see the movie, Reagan. Thank you for subscribing and reading. All the best, Byron W. King Contributing Editor Rude Awakening ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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