Reagan's Boyhood Called Revealing In K-School Speech

Low Cannon, the author of a recent biography of President Reagan, told a Kennedy School, of Government audience last night that in order to understand Reagan's attitudes toward tax cuts and other policies, he needed to learn more about his boyhood, not his political career.

Cannon, a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, said that in the President's formative years most people saw America as a "secure and perfect" country. "For Reagan the glass was always half-full," said Cannon before about 50 spectators.

"Americans assumed prosperity would last forever in those days. Cannon said.

Reagan's own life supported his optimism Cannon noted. At the height of the Depression he landed a $100 a week job in 1937 when it was the dream of every American to get any job in Hollywood Reagan casually auditioned and received a role.

Reagan's practical intelligence was the deducted from experience," Cannon said, "He feels the system has worked for him." The journalist cited this mentality to explain Reugan's economic programs which Cannon said were designed to make deeper and swifter recoveries than actually possible.