President Reagan's Interview on John Wayne on September 12, 1988

Hello, when you did this, I believed that Duke was not necessarily in favor of the war, but once we were in it, he wanted to win it and we would like to know his opinion and attitude on the matter. Well, I think several. We all had that same feeling and I think what Duke felt was what I felt at that moment and that the great immorality of the Vietnam War was that our government asked young people to give their lives to that war when the government did not I intended to win it because they were afraid of what might follow, which could be worse if we tried to win that particular war and, as I say, I think that was the great immorality.

I think Duke felt the same way when he made the Green Berets. At that time there was more going on in Hollywood than people not being in favor of the war. I remember we had called the theater when the movie came out, it opened to reserve seats like a play would be and Nancy and I couldn't get tickets and we would call the box office and say if anyone had turned in their tickets or anything we could and We couldn't and finally called someone else who was supposed to be in charge of the tickets. and I found out that there were tickets for any night you wanted them, but you were told at the box office that there were no tickets available, in other words, the people who were supposed to be promoting attendance at that movie, we are literally keeping people away and I called Duke and told him and I think some John Wayne action took place pretty quickly about the opening being successful because I haven't looked into that yet, remember, I can't remember now what the outcome was or when I think, oh, I think. which was fine once that period passed and then became available in theaters without reserved seating, both you and Duke used the same Stephenson power for a long time, but even on camera I noticed it and apparently it had a special meaning for him because Steve had sent a photo to his wife and responded, "You're a typical 'You know I'm John Wayne,' which has become an Americanism.

Could you comment on that story and your feelings about Steve Hanson?" Well, that's just what I thought. I might be asking about it, that's my Larry Stephens bracelet, but I have to say that I wore more than the ones on his side, I had several that I felt I had to change because there was another naval officer that was shot down and that was his widow, She didn't know it had been shot down, she thought she was missing in action, not his wife, but there is another one back and the very beginning of the families came together to form an organization about this and this was the lady.

Hansen and her came to when I was governor, there was a meeting in the Cabinet Room and she was speaking and I will remember that particular story for a long time because halfway through the meeting I felt something tugging at my pant leg and I looked. down and it was a little three year old boy who when I looked at him said, are you bringing my dad home, then a naval officer came back who was able to tell him that he was not missing in action, that he was dead like Larry Stephens was and they are not married, They later married this officer who came home and Todd, the little three-year-old boy, now he's a naval officer, went to Annapolis and everyone, except yes, felt very strongly about things like that and I don't know as much as he evidently knew. about the Larry Stevens case, but like I say, I had several of these from family members and I used to try to get some that they carried from everyone, let's say we found some old news.

Andy Devine's footage featured you at a political party that you and Duke attended and the footage doesn't start in the right place and the only part we found is we don't really know what the vine was saying, but when it's your turn to speak. The first thing you said was he stood up and said, "Well, I'd vote for Duke too, so Devine must have said something. I don't know if you remember it or not, but everyone laughed. I laughed so hard. I can't." . I don't remember that, but it was true, believe me, that Duke Wayne was very often at political meetings and so on and he was very supportive of me and I was very grateful to him for that and he was the typical John Wayne when things happened for or against.

However, I remember one meeting and this was before politics for me, but when I was

president

of the Screen Actors Guild and this was at a time when there was a lot of communist infiltration in the film industry, I don't think many people are aware of This really was and it was not just something that some of us dreamed of, the FBI was very involved in this and there was no doubt that on orders from the Kremlin it was to try to take control of the film industry's product because at that time Hollywood films took up about 90% of the playing time on all the screens in the world and Stalin had publicly declared that this was the best means of propaganda possible and I remember one night at a meeting of the Screen Actors Guild and the agency had informed me about how they operated to control the meetings and keep them late into the night until people started leaving and then they knew their own count and when they were in the majority to If there were enough people left, then they would start making the moves they wanted, so they would tell me They warned about that and you know, you and I, if we were to control them, do you think we would go in one body and sit together, they dispersed so that everyone.

The moment the word was released and I was presiding over the meeting, everyone put their hands up, so no matter who you pointed to, there was a 90% chance of catching one of them, being aware of this and when the matter of that began. When the legitimate business was over, one of our people did what I had proposed to do and that created an excitement to adjourn and there was a second of the motion and I called the audience and said that a motion to adjourn is always acceptable , they started shouting a point of order, a point of order, well, their point of order was that the second one was just an anonymous voice in the audience and how could I claim that this had been proposed and seconded and so on?

I hadn't and I just looked out of the audience and saw Duke Wayne sitting there and I said, well, nothing anonymous. I said Duke, weren't you the one who seconded Duke's motion? He says of course, it wasn't me, whom you could count on. About him at a press conference after his death, you told the story of him attending a meeting with Jimmy Stewart, who, as you know, had just lost his stepson, I think he did, and Duke made sure that a war protester came out. A Vietcong flag was stopped, I mean, a deference to Jimmy Stewart, do you remember he was there, yeah, I don't remember exactly what he did about it, if it was the person, I'd say that's probably what he did, but anyway , suddenly there was no longer any demonstration or interference with the At the meeting, he had that power, didn't she do her work herself?

Yes, even a solid citizen. She asked him to respond one last time, please sir. Now there has been an effective speech in '68 at a Republican convention commenting on his hopes and dreams for his little Daughter and could you comment on your action and the crowd's reaction? Her dreams for this country are not this. I don't know if I wasn't present at that particular session because I wasn't at any of them and or not. and but I wasn't present when he spoke, so I can't go in and then I'm sorry to say it, but you like the mathematics, your comments, any comments you want to give to close that we are making this documentary. is for public television on John Wayne called an American hero, I might add, so any last final comments you want to make to us about the man, well, there is one thing that I think shows the character of that man, as well as anything there There was a strike while I was

president

of the Screen Actors Guild, it was the first strike, the only strike that the actors had taken and I was getting quite a bit of abuse in the media and the press for this and so on, and at that time I was not there.

You knew John Wayne well, you know when you were, they were different studios, you knew about each other, but you didn't run into them as often as you could, so I didn't know him well at all and in the mornings for seven months. I was away from that house, two meetings we were having trying to fix this and Nancy was there, but the morning papers and sometimes they were worse than others and I came home one day and Nancy told me that she had had a phone call that morning after I left and it was John Wayne and John was also reading the papers and John she had never met him and John said "I thought you might want to hear a friendly voice about this time" and then she told him how supportive he was and so on about what I was doing and he did that every morning when the press was hostile she could count on a call from John Wayne just to cheer her up and soon after that he had started with another man who was a good friend of our Jimmy Cagney, so that she had two boyfriends who called her every morning after I left and it was typical of you that he went and I remember him on the campaign and so on, and Prescott's questions directed at him and regarding the campaign were as strong as any.

It could be that he has truly come to embody an American hero and a true sense of that word hero. Yes, it was deservedly so, thank you sir, thank you.