The Red Phone Diaries

The Reagan Presidential Library has opened yet another theme-park like exhibit to complement it’s Air Force One display, taking groups of 5th and 6th graders back to the magical Reagan Era.

Students will get to play the President and his advisers in the Oval Office, officers in a military command center, and press briefers and the media in the White House Press Room.

Their mission: invade Grenada!

We are constantly told that Presidential Libraries grow more objective over time, as the death grip of the Ex, their family and their staff fades.

The Reagan Library is still very much the other way.

The Executive Director touts the new exhibit’s “unmatched creativity,” and they do take a bold approach to facts. Students will work at a simulated “Command Decision Center” from the USS Ronald Reagan, which while impressive brand loyalty is a total anachronism. The USS Reagan didn’t exist at the time of the invasion.

The Reagan Library’s description of the Grenada buildup leaves out the simultaneous Marine barracks disaster in Beirut, a story Grenada providentially removed from the headlines.

And not by accident. The Library’s John Lehane presents the Press Room mock-up as where “the White House related the scenario to the American public through the press,” which is sort of true. The press was forced to rely on Reagan Administration handouts because the Pentagon banned media from covering the invasion, overturning decades of cooperation.