Reagan & ... uh, Reagan

A few days ago, nytimes.com posted a video feature entitled Inaugurations in Times of Peril. In it was a piece of the closing of Ronald Reagan's first inaugural, in which he told us we had to believe we could overcome the perils ahead, concluding with the line: "And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans." 

What was the inspiration for that remark? Robert Schlesinger says it was Reagan himself, who  "had a Hollywood thought":

There was a World War II movie about Bataan*, he told Khachigian and image adviser Michael Deaver, in which an actor named Frank McHugh said something like, "We're Americans. What's happening to us?" Khachigian spun this thought into a line in his first draft -- "We have great deeds to do.... But do them we will. We are after all Americans" -- which in turn evolved into the delivered speech's closing...

The rest of the speech was inspired by ... well, Reagan. Again, Schlesinger:

Reagan had handed Khachigian a six-inch-high stack of four-by-six index cards from his speeches over the years. In a sense, though, he had given one speech over his entire career...what came to be known as "The Speech" -- his standard statement of a philosophy that favored country and business and opposed government and communism....Khachigian had sent Reagan a batch of memos with suggestions for the inaugural, but the president-elect had hardly glanced at them. He wanted themes from The Speech and from his 1967 inaugural address as governor of California, a speech he had written by hand...

*By the way, if you can find a movie about Bataan in which Frank McHugh said anything, let me know--Bill Seyle