The symbolic Reagan differs from the reality

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - Ronald Reagan's name is enshrined on an airport, an aircraft carrier, belt buckles, and highways. His likeness - with that sunny smile - appears on drink coasters, statues, talking dolls, and a Rose Bowl Parade float.

Conservatives make the pilgrimage to his presidential library in Simi Valley, a showcase of all things Reagan. Presidential candidates debate there, hoping to be dubbed heir to the Reagan legacy. Even President Obama invokes his name.

As the 100th anniversary of his birth approaches on Feb. 6, and a generation after he left the White House, the nation's 40th president is held in higher esteem now than when he was in office. Still, the popular image of "The Gipper" - resolute, square-shouldered, unfailingly optimistic - overlooks a more complicated presidency - and person.

Do Americans, less than a decade after his death, have a clear idea of who he was?

"No," according to historian Kevin Starr.

How did a former radio announcer, middling actor and union leader in Hollywood become a titanic figure in American history?

Even with his reputation as the Great Communicator, "there remains something opaque, something . . . even mysterious in Ronald Reagan," Starr said.

This week the nation will celebrate Reagan's life, with tributes from a video to be shown at the Super Bowl in Dallas to a Beach Boys concert in California. Senators will pay tribute in floor speeches in Washington, and Sarah Palin will address a banquet on Friday night in Reagan's honor in Santa Barbara, near his beloved ranch.

Long a Republican hero, Reagan was praised for his role in ending the Cold War, kick-starting an ailing economy and coaxing Americans out of a collective funk. At turns revered on the right and reviled on the left in his 1980s heyday, Reagan is now ranked among America's most admired presidents.

But the Reagan myth can obscure Reagan the man.

The president's 52-year-old son, Ron, said he sometimes doesn't recognize the pop culture-version of his father, the man held up as a patriarch of Republican politics. And he thinks that attempts to idolize his father, known for his modesty, miss the point.

In his recently published book, My Father at 100, Reagan describes his father as "warm yet remote" and "easy to love yet hard to know."

"You may think you know Ronald Reagan, or at least the 90 percent or so that was so long and frequently on public display," he writes. "However, even to those of us who were closest to him, that hidden 10 percent remains a considerable mystery."

Perhaps not surprising for a former actor, Reagan is often remembered for his best lines: "Trust, but verify," his warning about Soviet relations; "Our enemy is no longer Red Coats, but red ink" and other jeremiads about big government and spending; and references to the "shining city upon a hill," which recalls a 17th-century sermon.

But Reagan is sometimes misunderstood, adopted for causes or ideas that don't dovetail neatly with his record in office.

Reagan is seen as an apostle of lower taxes, but he supported what was then the largest tax increase in California history when he served as governor, from 1967 to 1975.

Cutting deals with Democratic leaders in Congress, he cut and raised taxes during his White House days.

The debt held by the public climbed on his watch - from $712 billion in 1980 to $2 trillion in 1988, and he never presented a balanced budget to Congress during his eight years in office.

The president remembered for a huge military buildup also proposed abolishing nuclear weapons.

For Americans, Reagan as president keeps looking better.

"He's passed on into mythology now," says former Reagan speechwriter and adviser Peter Hannaford, who worked on Reagan's 1976 and 1980 campaigns.

With the passage of time "the positives get stronger and stronger, and the details of what worked well and what didn't work so well fall away, particularly the things that didn't," Hannaford said.