The Search for Reagan by Craig Shirley

Author:Craig Shirley [Shirley, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2023-12-16T17:08:08+00:00

AIDS

“We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.”265

—Ronald Reagan

Napoleon Bonaparte once quipped that “history is a set of lies agreed upon,” and so it has been with Ronald Reagan and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) crisis in America.

The false narrative—promulgated by his political enemies—was that Ronald Reagan did nothing in the face of the AIDS crisis and coldly let hundreds of thousands of gay men die needlessly.

First, it is untrue. A fabrication made up out of whole cloth. Second, a cure was never discovered—despite the best efforts—during the tenure of his presidency or indeed, in his lifetime. The only way not to get AIDS during his presidency was not to engage in risky behavior. And at Reagan’s direction, the government spent untold amounts of money communicating with the American people generally and gay men specifically how to practice safe sex.

“Ronald Reagan’s supposed malign neglect on AIDS and hostility to gays are twin pillars of the left’s anti-Reaganism.”266

The lie was promulgated, in large part, by a lousy docudrama that aired on Showtime, the minor cable station, after CBS first ordered it and then ordered it off their network again. It featured a false narrative of a Reagan scene in which Nancy Reagan is portrayed falsely nagging her husband to say something about AIDS and a false Reagan saying, “No.”

It was written by teleplaywright Elizabeth Egloff, even though she admitted she had no evidence on which to base a terrible comment supposedly from Reagan that was blatantly disregarding gay people and AIDS by falsely saying, “Those who live in sin will die in sin.” Reagan never said it, and she had no evidence he ever said it. The liar, in truth, was Egloff.

In fact, in City Journal, Peter Huber wrote, “In dealing with AIDS, Reagan did what he did so often did well—he appointed people who shared his political convictions…based on apolitical facts and solid science. These appointees framed and announced such decisions in ways that would not result in politically polarizing efforts—in this case efforts to fight a disease that disproportionately afflicted the gay community.”267

AIDS first appeared on the scene in 1981, but it was years before the danger of the infliction and the victims were realized. The at-risk group was a small part of the American populace, and people and the government just didn’t know where it had come from.

AIDS is a miserable disease, affecting its victims horribly. One can recover from colds, the flu, and broken bones, but it was soon discovered that contracting AIDS was terminal. And it was an awful, painful, and premature death. The first report of patients suffering from what would be called AIDS appeared in June 1981, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported five cases, two fatal, of a rare pneumonia-like affliction.

First, it was thought that Haitians got it. Second, it was thought it could be transmitted by mosquitoes. “Initially, the CDC coined the phrase ‘the 4H disease,’ for the syndrome seems to affect heroin users, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and Haitians.

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