Last Act

by Craig Shirley

  The day before, Patti and Mike Reagan and Mike’s children had gathered around their father’s bed in the room that had once been his office, as they were told of the eventuality. But it hadn’t come as thought and both departed. Patti went home and spent a sleepless night looking at the moon, tossing over their turbulent life together. She returned early the next morning to find the frail man still alive, still fighting. She hoped her brother Ron could be there before the end. Fortunately, he arrived in time to comfort his mother and sister and say good-bye to his father one last time.28 It was all taking place in the small den that had been his bedroom for years, in which Nancy had dinner each evening with her husband.29

  The human heart beats approximately 72 times per minute, which translates to more than 100,000 times per day, more than 37 million times per year and, depending on the lifespan, roughly about 2.5 billion beats over a lifetime. Now Reagan’s heart was nearing its finish.

  As Patti recounted in The Long Goodbye,

  My brother is . . . sitting beside the hospital bed; his eyes are soft and sad. His hand is resting on our father’s back—a back grown thin, the bones sharp and narrow as twigs . . . My father’s breathing is even more ragged, and his closed eyes are rimmed in shadow . . . As the morning goes on and sun burns through the fog, his breathing grows more threadbare. At several moments we think this is it. We tighten the circle around him, touch him lightly, tell him we love him. He inhales sharply; he makes a snoring sound and we laugh through our tears . . . there is nothing else we can do . . . Just before one o’clock we know that this really is it. His breathing is telling us—so shallow it sounds like it can’t even be reaching his lungs. His face is angled toward my mother’s. He opens his eyes—both eyes—wide. They are focused and blue. They haven’t been blue like that in more than a year but they are now. My father looks straight at my mother, holds onto the sight of her face for a moment or two, and then gently closes his eyes and stops breathing. The room is quiet except for soft weeping; my mother whispers, “That’s the greatest gift you could have given me.”30

  At 1:09 p.m. Pacific daylight time, 4:09 p.m. on the East Coast,31 the fortieth president of the United States—Dutch, the Gipper, Ronnie, Ron, “The Teflon President,” “The Great Communicator,” Ronnie Ray-Gun, Leader of the Free World, Conqueror of Worlds, Beloved, Hated, Destroyer of Evil Empires—Ronald Wilson Reagan was dead.

  At his passing, Reagan was surrounded by Ron, Patti, and Nancy. Dr. Shaack was also there as was the day nurse, Laura.32 Michael unfortunately arrived after his father passed.33

  Reagan’s death came almost to the day of the sixtieth anniversary of the greatest invasion in history, one that liberated a continent and millions of people. Fox News was the first television network to report the passing of the Gipper at just a few minutes past 4:09 p.m. in the east, having first “teased” the story by saying on air that bad news was forthcoming from California about Reagan.

  All four children including Maureen, who’d predeceased her father, often had rocky relations with their parents over the years, but much of that anger and hostility had dissipated at least as far as the public was concerned; however, privately Michael sometimes fumed over his stepmother and the people around her. He issued his own statement on the passing of his father, saying that he “changed America and the world for the better.”34

  Drake called Hooley, and choking back tears simply said, “Jim, he’s gone.”35 They’d left nothing to chance, and the first page of “The Book” said she was to call “Duke (Blackwood), Gary Foster, Fred Ryan, Mike Wagner, Jim Hooley, Mike Deaver and Rick Ahearn.”36 “The Book” was the plan that had been developed over the years for the implementation of Reagan’s funeral. Bemused by the planning for his own bereavement, Reagan liked to josh Ryan over the whole matter.

  Nancy called Fred and through her tears told him, “We’ve lost him.” Ryan told her he would leave Washington immediately for the West Coast and then discovered he was crying too.37

  The fact that Ronald Reagan had made it nearly ten years after announcing his own Alzheimer’s, and at his age of ninety-three—a life that included a lot of rough and tumble living, that featured surgeries and being bucked off horses, and broken bones, and cancers, and a near-fatal shooting—was a testament to his physique, his stamina, his genes, and his outlook.

  He’d always been a superior athlete and a particularly outstanding swimmer. In 1932, he was offered a chance to try out for the U.S. Olympic swim team but declined, as he needed to make money for school.38 He loved all sports except tennis and jogging. Bill Buckley recounted how years earlier at their first meeting where Reagan was to introduce the writer to a packed hall in Los Angles, the sound system had been turned off and no one was available to get it working. Reagan spotted a third-story window and managed to climb out on the ledge, break the window, climb in, and turn on the public address system, all the while in a suit and tie and never mussing his hair.39

  Even after his Alzheimer’s was revealed, Reagan still went golfing, swimming, and horseback riding frequently, and to the office for several years, said Joanne Drake. Even in his advancing years, “he was still the same kind, humble, funny guy . . . his natural personality was a very calm demeanor. The only time I ever saw him get angry was when he couldn’t think of a word,” Drake said. He kept going to the office, Drake said, in part because the doctors said routine was important. “The last thing we wanted was for him to be sitting home, doing nothing. That frustrated him and it frustrated Mrs. Reagan.”

  Reagan kept active, going to the office and going to the Library until 1999. And Drake said he was still going golfing, still going to lunch as of 1998 and 1999.40 The state of California took the opportunity to unveil a Reagan license plate, and sales were brisk.

  Reagan had been in near complete seclusion since his ninetieth birthday in 2001, however, when a touching photo was released of him and Nancy in matching red sweaters with a cake, kissing. His hair, cut shorter than what people remembered, had whitened greatly but other than that he still looked to all like the Gipper they’d remembered, albeit older. He was “too ill,” however, to attend a birthday celebration for him attended by seven hundred people at the Library. And as it turned out, it was the last photo to be released of Reagan. In 2001, the Century City office was closed and Drake “downsized” the staff and offices, moving to Westwood.41 When they cleaned out his desk, inside they found an ancient letter from his mother, Nelle, to her son with the advice, “if you learn to love reading, you will never be alone.”42

  A military honor guard moved immediately to protect the remains of President Ronald Reagan, and a quickly growing media contingent gathered outside the Reagan home despite the fact they’d been asked to keep a respectable distance from the fence surrounding the property. Mrs. Reagan issued a short and correct statement, but that was the public Mrs. Reagan. In private, it was another matter. Ryan said, “She was just totally overcome.”43 Her husband of more than half a century was gone.

  “My family and I would like the world to know that President Reagan has passed away after ten years of Alzheimer’s disease at 93,”44 Nancy Reagan said in her initial statement. The official cause of death was pneumonia. As the Reagan sons departed, they both civilly nodded to the media. Mike left in his Jeep and was heard to politely say to some reporters, “Thank you.”45 Within a short period of time, a police presence showed up as a swelling crowd gathered outside the Reagan home and then a trickle of flowers began to arrive, to be left on the side of the street, the sidewalk, and the fence.

  Nancy Reagan was not just losing her husband. It was a life and a life partnership. “The central Reagan command meets in bed at night,” said Teddy White.46 They were best friends and soul mates, and his letters to her over the years left no doubt as to the depth of their mutual
love. It was not unusual for his letters to open, “Darling Mommy Poo”47 and “To My Roommate.”48

  Unlike the Kennedys, the Nixons, and the Clintons, the Reagans did not have separate bedrooms in the White House. It was once said that if Reagan had wanted to be the best shoe salesman in the world, she would have made sure he was. It was just that he wanted to be a national and international leader and he never would have without her. In more than fifty years of marriage, there had never been one tiny rumor about them or the state of their marriage. Except for the shallow Kitty Kelley, even the foulest Reagan haters knew better than to ever go there. Reagan wrote a handful of letters to friends who’d commiserated with him and Nancy about the “total dishonesty” manufactured by Kelley in a widely discredited book about Nancy Reagan.49

  Their love had been one of the great stories of the American presidency. She’d devoted years to helping him rise, and now, over the last ten years, was helping him toward the inevitable fall. Bob Colacello, a personal friend who’d written an intimate portrayal of the two, said, “I think until quite recently, he still had some sense of who she was and that she was there for him.”50 Even as Reagan succumbed over the years, she was still his partner, still looking out for him, still protecting him. “She was called ruthless,” claimed one wire story. But she wasn’t afraid to protect him. Once she stormed to trusted aide and close friend Mike Deaver, “What have you done to my husband?”51

  Unfortunately for Nancy Reagan, the role of family disciplinarian fell to her because as Reagan himself said, “I should have been sterner than I was.” The children agreed. Maureen said he was a “soft touch” and Ron said his father was a “better friend than a father.”52 So Nancy had to often be the heavy and get on the Reagan children’s cases about school, life, responsibility, relationships, and behavior, especially with his travel schedule for General Electric and, later, national politics. He wrote in his diaries about Ron hanging up on him and arguing with Nancy and how mad he was at his son for doing so.53

  When it came to governing, however, he could be tough, such as the time when as governor he personally mediated a strike by Los Angeles bus drivers against the city. Or the time, also as governor, when thousands of student protesters descended on the state capitol, angry over cuts in education spending. Rather than hiding out in his office, Reagan went out to meet with them and tersely explain his policies.

  The very first story moved by the Associated Press was a short list of books about Ronald Reagan including those by Lou Cannon, Nancy Reagan, Mike Deaver, and others. The very second story moved by the AP came from NBC.com, written by Tom Curry, and was a very harsh review of Reagan’s life that used tired catchphrases such as “glib,” “doctrinaire,” and that his “adversaries” said he was “uninformed—a mere actor.”54

  Curry also tracked down Ralph Reed, former deputy to Pat Robertson at the Christian Coalition, who offered a very harsh view of the just deceased Reagan. Reed “viewed the Reagan presidency with chagrin. ‘His eight years in office did little to transform a political culture that had become insensitive to religious values and uncaring about innocent human life,’ ” said Reed. The slight, former assistant and business partner of Jack Abramoff elaborated and said conservatives “woke up the morning after Reagan’s two terms to discover that many maladies still afflicted our nation and many pathologies had grown worse.” Reed was the only person interviewed for the story.55

  The rest of the NBC story followed Reed’s lead, superficially focusing on the failings of Reagan’s father (“alcoholic . . . ne’er-do-well”), the failing of Reagan as an actor (“the foil to leading men . . .”), and the failings of Reagan’s presidency. “Bitburg, S&L mishaps . . . Reagan made some costly miscalculations. In the last two years of his presidency Reagan was hobbled . . . by . . . the Iran-Contra fiasco . . .”56

  The story never mentioned the restoration of the American spirit, the revival of the national economy, the crushing defeat of Soviet communism, or the fortieth president’s many other accomplishments.

  Having failed to defeat him in life, the NBC story was typical of much of the national media this day and in the coming days—they would attempt to defeat him in death and bury his legacy once and for all.

  And yet, the early praise of Reagan that was offered by some of his international adversaries and political opponents was more fulsome than it was from some so-called friends and certainly the national media or the universities. The former deputy foreign minister of the Soviet Union Alexander Bessmertnykh shot down the myth that Reagan was a creation of his staff or his 4 x 6 notes. “He would throw those notes away and start talking to us in that direct way . . .” Bessmertnykh elaborated that “he admired the president and thought that he was a very good negotiator and that he had ideals . . .”57

  Within minutes of confirming the passing of Reagan, all three networks broke away from their regular programming for the announcement. At 7:00 p.m., National Public Radio went with special Reagan coverage, hosted by Linda Wertheimer, a liberal, and wife of longtime liberal and Reagan critic Fred Wertheimer. The broadcast began, “A former actor and broadcaster . . .” Indeed, the first several minutes on NPR focused exclusively on Reagan’s movie and television career. By the time Wertheimer and her cohost, Neal Conan, got to reporting on the 1980 campaign, they completely messed up the real story of the famous Nashua debate while glossing over the meaning and historical importance of the 1980 election.

  A derisive reference was also made to the “so-called Reagan Revolution,” and even his athletic skills as a football player at Eureka were questioned in the news report on the taxpayer-funded radio network. Further, NPR implied that Nancy Reagan’s father had opened up political doors for his new son-in-law but this was yet another misnomer. Even in reporting on Reagan’s announcement of his own Alzheimer’s, the story reported that he’d done so “in a shaky handwritten letter.”58 One word had been crossed out but other than that, in fact, it was a pretty firm and clear script for a man eighty-three years of age.

  Fred Ryan had been there almost ten years earlier when Reagan was told of his deadly affliction. It was a Saturday, just before the 1994 elections, and they were at the Reagans’ home in Bel Air. Reagan had gone to the Mayo Clinic every year for many years to get complete physical and psychological testing that consisted of remembering sequences of numbers, colors, and other tests for acuity and memory. He’d passed each year with flying colors until the spring of 1994 when doctors noted he was slipping, “seeing memory loss that was more than age-appropriate.”59

  Later that fall, the decision was made to tell Reagan himself. It was a Saturday afternoon in November. They were in the brightly decorated library of the house in Bel Air. The afternoon sun was streaking through the glass windows. Nancy Reagan already knew; she had been told the night before by Dr. Oliver “Ollie” Beahrs, Reagan’s doctor at Mayo. “Very upset,” she called Ryan and told him she needed him to be at the house the next day when Reagan was told.60

  Mrs. Reagan was weeping as the doctor matter of factly told Reagan of the diagnosis. Ryan recalled that Reagan took it in stride, never showed any emotion, and understood what he was facing. Almost immediately he went to a small round table and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. Ryan asked the president what he was doing, and he replied, “Well, I guess we’ve got to tell some people about this.”61 With that, he composed the letter read and heard round the world, announcing his affliction.

  Nov. 5, 1994

  My Fellow Americans,

  I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease.

  Upon learning this news, Nancy and I had to decide whether as private citizens we would keep this a private matter or whether we would make this news known in a public way.

  In the pa
st Nancy suffered from breast cancer and I had my cancer surgeries. We found through our open disclosures we were able to raise public awareness. We were happy that as a result many more people underwent testing. They were treated in early stages and able to return to normal, healthy lives.

  So now, we feel it is important to share it with you. In opening our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of this condition. Perhaps it will encourage a clearer understanding of the individuals and families who are affected by it.

  At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life’s journey with my beloved Nancy and my family. I plan to enjoy the great outdoors and stay in touch with my friends and supporters.

  Unfortunately, as Alzheimer’s Disease progresses, the family often bears a heavy burden. I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience. When the time comes I am confident that with your help she will face it with faith and courage.

  In closing let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your President. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.

  I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

  Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.

  Sincerely,

  Ronald Reagan62

  Reagan must have sensed the historic nature of the letter, as he dated it and he almost never dated his handwritten communications.