Reagan the actor was in charge

RÓNÁN MULLEN does his best (Irish Examiner, June 9) to prove that Ronald Reagan's inability to master details related to policy issues was more than offset by his related vision.

The truth is, as his various biographies show, Reagan was chosen by calculating power-hungry businessmen because he was an actor with a photographic memory who could be trusted to issue carefully-scripted soundbites, first for General Electric, and then to help the Republican Party to gain two terms in California and in Washington.

Gifted with a photographic memory, he was also so burdened by it that he was the political equivalent of a ventriloquist's dummy.