Last Act

by Craig Shirley

  Morris also recounted a cruel rumor that claimed an Alzheimer’s-ravaged Reagan raked the same leaves over and over out of the pool while discrete Secret Service agents kept replenishing them.45 A very close aide disputed this.46 John Podhoretz said the book was “a work of lunacy.” For his lunacy, Random House paid Morris three million dollars.47

  While a myth emerged that the Reagans courted Morris to write the book, the truth was Morris had pitched Reagan on the biography idea, “describe[ing] parallels between the Gipper and T.R. [Theodore Roosevelt].” News accounts said Reagan was “beguiled.”48 But apparently not for long.

  Both Lyn Nofziger and Peter Hannaford, two longtime intimate aides to Reagan, knew what the problem was with Morris. Simply put, Morris got on Reagan’s nerves and he clammed up. That was how Reagan dealt with people who bugged him. He wouldn’t talk.49 When Reagan didn’t like somebody, he wasn’t rude or off-putting. Plenty of Reagan men over the years said they saw this with the Gipper as how he dealt with people who irritated him.

  From Nancy Reagan to the staff at the Reagan Library and Foundation to the hundreds who had worked in the Reagan administration to the thousands who knew him and worked with him over the years, all were angered and disappointed with the Morris book. The National Review devoted its cover and several stories to ripping the book. Years of planning and access granted and hopes had been invested in Dutch. Reagan was a guy who, shirtless and in his sixties, was getting up on the roof of his ranch house to repair it and was working with Dennis LeBlanc, who was years younger than the Gipper. This was a man who was so open and charming that he disarmed nearly all, but who could be tough and resilient, as old friend and advisor Stu Spencer knew.

  What was also strange was how Morris injected himself into Dutch and how he bounced between first and third person narratives and how he awkwardly disputed that Reagan was in the ballpark about the true meaning of the word Chernobyl, which in some interpretations of the Ukrainian Bible meant the name of the “star” in Revelation 8:10–11.

  “That sounded too good to be true,” whimpered Morris when Reagan referred to it as Armageddon, but Morris became even more truculent when he discovered that Reagan was essentially right since many saw similarities between a nuclear disaster and the biblical description of the blazing star “Wormwood” falling on earth.50

  Morris also abused Mrs. Reagan horridly in the narrative. “Mrs. Reagan . . . is otherwise treated shabbily as a rich Republican with a blinkered view of life . . .,” said National Review. Morris also created fictional characters including “Paul Rae a . . . homosexual writer (and early AIDS victim) who regards him [Reagan] as the vacant repository of narrow small-town virtues,” wrote John O’Sullivan.51

  It was only when it was too late and Reagan had passed away that Morris grasped the significance of the man, telling Dan Rather,

  Well, I feel that a large part of the earth has crumbled away. There was something epic about Reagan and his sheer historic size. For example, where is Soviet communism? Where is the Berlin Wall? Where is national malaise? Where is our contempt for and our embarrassment about the American military? It’s what we no longer see in the world that testifies to the way he changed things.52

  All felt this was what the Morris book failed to capture.

  Morris had been given unprecedented access to Reagan in the final two years of the presidency and even more so in the post-presidential years. Morris concluded that Reagan was unfathomable and then pronounced—in so many words—that the fortieth president was a lightweight and an “airhead.”53 The book was a failure as a work of history and commercially it struck many as downright weird while containing obvious errors of fact and judgment.

  Morris never understood Reagan, but that was only part of the problem. The choice of Morris was a mistake in many ways. He was never going to write a balanced or favorable biography that would place him at risk of receiving the disapproval of liberal academia. Second, he was born and raised in a British culture and simply could not fathom American populism or American conservatism. Third, being an academic, he looked down his nose at Reagan as some sort of hayseed. The concept of upward mobility was foreign to both the British culture and the ivory tower elites.

  Dutch was excluded from the Reagan Library gift shop and Morris was nearly nonexistent in the media commentary during the week of the funeral. Meanwhile, the Reagan Library vowed to never put a toe in the water again of designating a Reagan historian, preferring, ironically “to let a hundred flowers bloom,” as communist leader Mao proclaimed. Maureen said of her father before her own death, “He wasn’t elusive and he wasn’t inscrutable,” but that was with people he liked, had just met, or at least tolerated. “He was a kind, caring, fun person,” she said defensively.54 In the years after his diagnosis, they often did puzzles together and she told people how much he delighted in her red nail polish.55

  There was a special relationship between Reagan and his eldest daughter, as there was with Patti. Maureen had made mistakes and gotten into scrapes but she was also smart and some said a better public speaker than her father. Maybe, but he did love her and protect her, same as he did with Patti. In 1982, Maureen decided to embark on a political career of her own by running for the U.S. Senate in California, when the incumbent, Republican senator S. I. “Sam” Hayakawa was “retiring” mostly because his approval ratings had fallen faster than a starlet’s career. The GOP primary contest was a mess involving Pete Wilson, Barry Goldwater, Jr., and others.

  It had leaked out of the White House that Reagan wasn’t all that pleased she was taking the plunge, but he never expressed his concerns in his diaries. The White House’s political director at the time was Ed Rollins, who was sent out on a scouting trip to see what Maureen’s chances were. Rollins spoke to a reporter who then betrayed the “off the record” agreement and there was Rollins in black and white jumping all over Maureen and her lousy campaign.56 He was in many ways the protégé of Lyn Nofziger. Both were bald, sported chin spinach, and were combustible, droll, conservative, and sometimes reckless in what they said publicly and privately.

  Rollins knew he was in trouble and, when he went back to the White House, Jim Baker told him Reagan wanted to see him because the president was “going to really ream your a—.” Sheepishly, Rollins crawled into the Oval Office and there was Reagan. Rollins apologized profusely, knowing Maureen had given her father a hard time over the newspaper article. Reagan said grimly, “Ed, let’s make a pact: you don’t say anything about any of the candidates; I won’t say anything about any of the candidates.”57

  Reagan sometimes jokingly referred to a “strange meeting”58 involving a young actress, Nancy Davis, who’d inadvertently ended up on a list of suspected communists in Hollywood in 1949 that had been published in the Hollywood Reporter. Frightened, she asked director Mervyn LeRoy, in whose movie East Side, West Side she was starring, for advice, and he suggested she reach out to the president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan.59 They shared a dinner so memorable that years later she could still recall what she ate and what she wore. Steak and a black dress.60

  They later took in a show, enjoying the performer Sophie Tucker. Tucker, ironically, was a Russian, known for her risqué songs and her ribald humor in a one-woman show. She was known as the “Last of the Red Hot Mamas.”61 In case the evening didn’t go well, they both told the other they had “early calls.” They both later confessed they’d each made up the little white lie.62

  Nancy Davis did not get home until 2:00 a.m., and in a way their first date lasted fifty-five years. They went on that one date and, though for a time continued to see other people, they really never stopped dating for the rest of their lives. They married in 1952 and a commentator said on the day Reagan passed away, “Their love story has always been a part of the presidential story.”63 In the
one movie they starred in together, Hellcats of the Navy, in 1957, Reagan said to his wife, “How do you know so much about the moon?” and she replied, “I know a lot about it. I spend all my time looking at it when you’re away.”64

  Of his marriage to Nancy, Reagan said, “Clark Gable had a line once. ’There is nothing more wonderful for a man than to approach his own doorstep knowing that someone on the other side of the door is listening for the sound of his footsteps.’ ”65

  In 1953, just after their marriage and as Reagan was hanging on by an economic thread—doing Chesterfield cigarette newspaper ads and Van Heusen shirt magazine ads—over the hill like the cavalry came the General Electric Company with an offer just in the nick of time that he could not refuse. It was an offer that would again alter the trajectory of his life. He was invited to host—and occasionally star in—the General Electric Theater broadcast that aired each Sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern standard time on CBS television and radio for $150,000 per year.66

  General Electric was a company that was as American as apple pie. “Progress is our most important product”67 was the corporate slogan, and it fit right into the 1950s of an optimistic, confident, and forward-looking country. People were familiar with GE’s many appliances such as washers and dryers and ranges and dishwashers, but at the crest of the second half of the twentieth century, the giant corporation was unveiling many new products, and they needed a spokesman who was equally apple pie American and who would be welcomed into American homes like the boy next door.

  Reagan was the perfect choice. He’d never been associated with any Hollywood scandals. In all his movies he was the good guy—or at worst a good-natured rascal or a sidekick good guy. GE Theater debuted in February 1953 and ran until May 1962. All told, 209 episodes were broadcast. Reagan was a natural, not only because he was a household name, was clean-cut, and represented stability, but also because he’d had some practice appearing previously in the Lux Video Theatre and the Ford Television Theatre.

  The show ran until 1962 when Reagan was fired by GE in part for criticizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, known more commonly as TVA, a Great Depression creation that sold taxpayer subsidized electricity to its customers. General Electric was also a large provider of equipment to the TVA. General Electric was conservative by nature, conservative in its culture, and conservative in its politics, even distributing copies of National Review68 to its employees. But business was business. At the time, GE had a fifty-million-dollars-per-year customer in TVA.69

  Years later, Mike Reagan said his father had been fired from GE because of pressure from the Kennedy administration.70 Others specifically fingered Robert Kennedy, guardian of the family’s reputation. But no one really knows for sure. What also went unanswered was why all Reagan’s men (and women) thought for years that their man often got the roughest treatment from CBS as opposed to the other two networks, in spite of Reagan’s happy relationship with the “Tiffany Network” for the decade of the 1950s.

  For ten years, GE Theater was a top-rated show and millions tuned in to see the adaptation of plays, movies, and novels for the glowing box in living rooms and bars across the nation. This was quality programming, and while movie stars at the time often turned up their noses at “the little screen,” guests who appeared on the long-running hit show included Fred Astaire, Claudette Colbert, Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Judy Garland, and even Reagan’s ex, Jane Wyman. GE Theater was nominated for many Emmy awards over the years and attracted top writers, including Kurt Vonnegut.

  Part of Reagan’s contract stipulated that he travel a certain amount of time to GE’s plants around the country, and at the time there were hundreds in places like Syracuse, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; Rome, Georgia; and Evendale, Ohio. The contract also allowed Reagan to avoid commercial air travel as he was terrified of flying at the time. He’d had two bad experiences and that was enough for him. So he traveled long distance by train.

  In those ten years, Reagan went to 135 GE factories around the country and toured the plants and spoke to the workers. It was in these factories and their lunchrooms that he developed into an exceptional public speaker. But it wasn’t just the GE factory workers and management to whom he spoke. Reagan would also address civic and social organizations, sometimes putting in as many as twenty-five appearances a day! Reagan would occasionally complain about his schedule. “I won’t! No mortal man can endure this schedule!” “But,” said Edward Langley, a former GE publicity man who worked with Reagan on his tours, “he did it.”71

  In the evenings, Reagan was also often called upon to sup with local businessmen and to “say a few words.” Never a boozer, Reagan would pretend to drink martinis while all the while downing glasses of heavily watered-down Rhine wine. Langley estimated that Reagan “made 9,000 extemporaneous speeches.” He also recalled Reagan speaking “fondly of Roosevelt” in those days.72

  “No one has been that saturated—marinated—in middle America, not even William Jennings Bryan,” said Langley.73 In the course of his years on the road for GE, Reagan transformed himself from an entertainer into a political force.

  CBS was scrambling to go live with their news of Reagan’s passing, just like the other networks and cable systems. Dan Rather was anchoring and was straightforward in announcing the death of a president but went almost immediately to the Gipper’s celluloid career, airing clips from various movies. The network did manage to insert a humorous clip of Reagan as governor, however, making sport of several sign-waving hippies. “The last bunch . . . were carrying signs that said, ’Make Love, Not War.’ The only trouble was they didn’t look like they were capable of doing either.”74

  They naturally went into Iran-Contra early and deeply. They blithely noted that Reagan had escaped the scandal by “riding horseback and doing chores on his ranch, he kept his all-American image intact . . .” But CBS also aired early on a very telling and insightful quote from the Gipper, midway through his presidency. “Let history say of us, ’These were golden years when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her best.’ ” To his credit, Rather did say Reagan was the president “who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War.”75

  The logistics involved for the week were astonishing. They involved the movement of Reagan’s remains but also the movements of Mrs. Reagan, the family, the dignitaries, the VIPs, and the crowds. Media coverage, meals, housing, and transportation and a thousand other important items needed to be considered and executed. State funerals typically took up to seven days.

  What had not been fully anticipated by the planners was the gravity of the outpouring from the American people. A trickle of appreciation would shortly crest into a tidal wave and wash across the nation.

  Tributes were coming in faster from the grassroots than from the privileged. Many citizens remembered some kindness of Reagan’s or the time he visited their town. From Indiana, the Associated Press headline that moved on the state wire proclaimed, “Reagan Remembered as Giant Whose Policies Resounded Strongly Here.”76 His speech at Notre Dame in 1981—the first trip he made beyond the nation’s capital after the assassination attempt—was extraordinarily well received at the school where he’d filmed Knute Rockne, All American in 1940.

  He’d told the graduates, “A university like this is a storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the seniors take so little away.”77 After the gales of laughter subsided, Reagan got down to a heartfelt address on life and living to the graduating class of 1981. During his presidency, he journeyed back to Indiana a number of times, including in 1988, to unveil at Notre Dame a new Knute Rockne postage stamp.78

  One member of the First Christian Church in Dixon, where Reagan attended services, Wanita Trader, said, “He was our hero, he was our hometown boy made good.”79

&nb
sp; In Pittsburgh, Thomas Delahanty, a very special retired policeman who nearly died when he, Reagan, and several others had been shot by John Hinckley in March 1981, spoke for the first time publicly about the assassination attempt and the day when he also stopped a bullet intended for the president. “He was a great man and had a strong faith in God and his country.”80 While recovering at George Washington hospital, Reagan noted that he, press secretary Jim Brady, Delahanty, and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy were all of a particular lineage. “What did this guy have against the Irish?” Reagan quipped.81 Reagan also cracked that they should have a reunion and bring their bedpans.

  The Chicago Tribune had two big stories on the front page on Sunday, June 6. His local roots were played up greatly. One story by Jon Margolis, a highly respected and longstanding political journalist, made the case that Reaganism inside the party was stronger in 2004 than it was while Reagan was in office. “It energizes a host of scholars, writers and political organizers . . .”82 Still, the praise from the writing class was slow and spare in coming.

  Reagan was an accomplished writer (he’d often thought of himself as essentially a writer and creative storyteller)83—a fact he vividly demonstrated for years with his five-minute radio broadcasts. He once entertainingly wrote, “A farmer of any kind is in a business that makes a crap table or roulette wheel look like a guaranteed annual income.”84

  He in turn attracted equally talented writers. Peter Hannaford, Ken Khachigian, Tony Dolan, Mari Maseng, Peggy Noonan, Landon Parvin, Clark Judge, and others. Hooley and others drawn to Reagan represented the small-town Irish side of Reagan. Devoted, hardworking, loyal, and mischievous. And because Reagan thought young and thought about the young, he in turn attracted young Americans who also thought about the future: Mark Tapscott and Jim Pinkerton and Michele Davis and Robbie Aiken and others, all young. Reagan attracted thousands of youthful conservatives to his cause.