The Alzheimer’s Association of America issued a long and tender statement on Reagan’s passing while making note that it was one of only three organizations recommended for contributions by the Reagans to commemorate the president’s passing. Their website was publicized to facilitate donations to the Alzheimer Association’s Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute.44
Later in the week, they also took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that featured a touching photo of the Reagans walking on a rural road, hand in hand, as the Gipper held a stick in his right hand with a small dog trying to fetch it. “As our nation mourns the passing of President Ronald Reagan, we remember and honor all that he and Mrs. Reagan have done to give hope, strength and courage to millions in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, even in our sadness we find hope.”45
“Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him,”46 said Nancy Reagan. “Because of this, I’m determined to do whatever I can to save other families from this pain.”47 She said this one month before he passed away.
When he found out he had Alzheimer’s, he thought not of himself but of the love of his life. “I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience,”48 he said in his letter to the nation in the fall of 1994.
To the end, like an O. Henry story of romance and mutual sacrifice, they thought of the other before they thought of themselves. Presidential historians agree that Nancy Reagan was as strong an influence on her husband as Eleanor Roosevelt was on hers. She was also a shrewd judge of character, knew a lot about medicine because both her father and brother had been medical doctors, and had graduated from the academically challenging Smith College. Her critics dismissed her as a clothes horse and unsophisticated, but more than one adversary came away the worse for wear in a contest of wits with Nancy Reagan.
She was both the immovable object and the irresistible force. She was proud to be Mrs. Ronald Reagan, even in their drooping financial days, and made no bones about it. And when necessary she was smart as a whip and tough as nails, and with him it was sometimes tough love. But also there was a lot of tenderness.
She once wistfully wrote of her idea of romance together in the canoe Tru Luv on the little pond he’d built at the ranch, him with a ukulele. “I’m old-fashioned, I know, but I thought it would be so romantic . . .” Reagan replied, “I don’t have a ukulele,” and without missing a beat, Nancy said, “That’s ok, you can hum.”49
Or maybe he could have brought his harmonica. Little did anyone know, but according to Joanne Drake, Reagan played the harmonica in private. He wasn’t great but good enough to amuse himself. He kept one in the top drawer of his desk and would occasionally pull it out and toot on it by himself, thinking, and musing things over.50 A couple of days before he was to leave the White House in January 1989, the Marine Corps Band presented Reagan with a new, gold-plated harmonica.
In a way, playing a harmonica made perfect sense for Reagan. Poor boys in America whose parents could not afford expensive instruments or music lessons could afford a shiny and inexpensive harmonica found at the local variety store. Tom Sawyer had a harmonica, and there was once even a “Tom Sawyer” brand of the mouth organ. The instrument was evocative of a poverty-stricken and even sometimes lonely little boy.
It was about this time as a child that Reagan for the first time saw his name in a newspaper. On August 3, 1928, the Dixon paper noted that the young lifeguard at Lowell Park, Ronald Reagan, had saved at that point twenty-five lives. In the seven summers he worked there, the tall and handsome young man was paid fifteen dollars per week that eventually became twenty dollars per week, most of which he saved for college.51 All told, he rescued seventy-seven people and each was carefully notched on a wood log at the Park by Dutch Reagan.52
It was easy to imagine the adult Reagan as president, the younger Reagan as a Hollywood movie star, and the boy Reagan in rural Illinois. He always seemed to fit his surroundings and there was connectivity to each. It was hard to imagine Eisenhower in Gettysburg but easy to see him in Kansas. It was hard to imagine Jefferson in Washington but easy to imagine him at Monticello. The minister at the First Christian Church in Dixon, where Dutch Reagan had been baptized and later taught Sunday school, said, “What’s remarkable is the extent to which it was carried in his life—that the things that made him president were begun right here in Dixon.” To no one’s surprise, the accounts of those who attended his Sunday school lessons were all favorable, including that of ninety-one-year-old Dixon resident Ken Detweiler.53
To fill airtime, some TV commentators began playing the speculation game, playing doctor, even if they’d never played a doctor on television. At ABC, Barbara Walters—with little evidence—injected herself into the story and said, “And when people began to think that he had Alzheimer’s, it was because he was repeating many of those same jokes, it was the first sign, perhaps that some of us got.”54
Walters then reviewed only the bad and superficial recollections of the eight years the Reagans were in Washington including one disconsolate aide who tried to commit suicide (and fortunately failed) and another who’d served time in prison. She also told the viewing audience she’d been to the Reagan home in Bel Air and the ranch in Santa Barbara. It went on. She even speculated on the relative closeness of the Reagans to their children.55 Tragedy and celebrity were Walters’s specialties, mixed with a healthy self-regard.
Elizabeth Vargas, also of ABC, made a gratuitous comment about Republicans opposing stem cell research and how that put Nancy Reagan “at odds” with them on the matter.56
Fortunately, the cross talk moved on to gentler ground, focusing on a book Mrs. Reagan had recently published of Reagan’s letters to her. Their release was to a greater purpose. As Reagan began to fade from the national debate in the latter part of the 1990s, the revisionism was already starting about him and his presidency. To help counter the fallacious image of Reagan as a hardhearted character, the decision was made to go ahead with the slim and elegant book. Proceeds went to the Alzheimer’s Foundation and the Reagan Library.57
“For so long, he was not taken seriously. Nobody knew that he ever did anything like this. They said he didn’t read. He always read. He never went any place without a book,” Nancy said. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos completed earlier, Mrs. Reagan revealed a startling fact: “He didn’t like the phone at all.” Reagan, the lifetime citizen politician, did not like to use the telephone but he was a prodigious writer of letters. Her personal favorite was actually a letter the supposedly indifferent father had written to his daughter Patti when she was a mere twenty-one months old.58
“Pretty soon the moon and the stars and this breeze got together and filled me with a longing so great that it seemed I’d die of pain if I couldn’t reach out and touch your mommy,” Reagan wrote his daughter. “I’m counting on you to take care of mommy and keep her safe for me because there wouldn’t be any moon or stars in the skies without her. The breeze would whisper no secrets and the warmth would go out of the sun.”59 In one of her varied careers later in life, Patti taught a class, “Recovering from Dysfunctional Families.”60
At various times, all the children were headaches to their parents. Reagan once confided in his diary, “Insanity is hereditary—you catch it from your kids.”61 He also wrote frankly at times about all four. Mrs. Reagan said as much in her book, My Turn. Mike Reagan for years had floated between two worlds, that of his adoptive mother Jane Wyman and of his adoptive father and his wife Nancy. He wrote a book, the title summing it all up: On the Outside Looking In.62
He complained, according to news reports, that his father missed his wedding. And “according to Michael, the standard holiday invitation from Ronald and Nancy Reagan was, ’come at 5 and be gone by 7.’ ”63 Patti
had been a rebellious California flower child, Ron “Skipper” had his issues over the years (including estrangement from his parents), and all said and did and wrote things that would have made any sane person climb the walls. On the one hand, many parents in America could have said, “Yeah? Take a look at my kids.” On the other hand, all the Reagan children also had fond memories of their parents and told people as much.
Some philosophers said that the worst times brought out the best in people, and Patti Davis was a case in point. She was nothing if not utterly helpful to her mother, stayed in the background, and took her father’s passing as hard or harder than her brothers, comporting herself with style and class. Like most fathers, Reagan celebrated his sons but doted on his daughters. Patti had evidently inherited some of her father’s writing abilities, too, and in this and a love of animals they shared, among other passions. “As my father leaves, slips away into the shadows of Alzheimer’s, a mysterious and cruel disease, his hand still reaches for another hand to hold. His grip is still surprisingly strong, and I will always believe that he knows when it’s my mother’s hand he’s holding.”64
For all their battles over the years, Reagan had also taught his daughter about fireflies and angels and talking to God and forgiveness. Pat Buchanan, an acerbic conservative columnist and commentator, had his own take on Reagan in the days after his death. “For Ronald Reagan, the world of legend and myth is a real world. He visits it regularly, and he’s a happy man there.”65
Reagan’s pet name for Nancy was “Mommy” but only after his own mother had died in 1962. Nelle Wilson Reagan may herself have died from complications associated with Alzheimer’s.66
The actual cause of Reagan’s death was listed on his death certificate as “pneumonia,” but in fact this was only brought upon by the onset of Alzheimer’s that was cited in the Certification of Vital Record as “contributing to death.” Also cited was his place of birth, his age, his Social Security number, “surviving spouse,” his residence, and the signature of the mortician, Robert M. Boetticher. Under the heading, “Usual Occupation” was listed, “President of the United States.”67
The presidency was not his first goal as a child and young man. He thought about being a cartoonist. He thought about a career in the army as a cavalry officer. He interviewed for—but didn’t get—a job at Montgomery Ward in Dixon. He finally became a radio announcer but was fired from WOC. Then hard networking and fate gave him a screen test and eventually a contract with Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood. Had the war not come along and put a large dent in his career, Reagan might have happily stayed an actor, which he loved doing. He was good and dependable said the directors and studio heads, he was popular said the audience, but he was a journeyman as a thespian said the critics, although he was especially good in “light comedy.”68
According to Ryan, there was no autopsy.69 “There was a rule: No extraordinary resuscitation measures.”70
The body of knowledge about the dreaded affliction was growing, but not so much as to find a cure or even an adequate explanation for what caused it. But Reagan’s passing began a public discussion about Alzheimer’s, which at the time afflicted as many as 4.5 million Americans.71 Scientists projected there would be an exponential growth of diagnosed Americans as they came to understand the disease more and more.
They did not know what caused it but, in examinations of brain tissue of deceased victims, saw clues in the buildup of “amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.”72 There was no cure; the cause could be genetic or environmental. Doctors and research scientists simply did not know.
Ryan remembered the first time he saw that Reagan was not right. It was the spring of 1994 when they were in New York City, and Reagan had reflected an anxiety, almost a fear, about the hotel room simply because it was unfamiliar.73
The Reagans had been more open than most first couples about the state of their health. As Ryan pointed out, Reagan could have hidden behind his Secret Service for years, but chose not to do so.74
Most presidents, up to Dwight Eisenhower and then continuing again with JFK and thereafter, concealed the president’s and the First Lady’s health and behaviors. From Washington to Truman, the health of the president was routinely hidden from the press and the people. Jefferson suffered from migraines, Lincoln battled deep depression, Grover Cleveland had surgery for cancer of the jaw (and had a rubber prosthetic implanted), and Wilson suffered an incapacitating stroke in the last years of his presidency. While FDR’s confinement to a wheelchair was more commonly known than is now believed, it is also estimated that no more than two or three photos were ever taken of him in his contrivance. The White House press, the staff, and the Secret Service were all in on the cover-up. If some new photographer took a thought-to-be-embarrassing photo of Roosevelt, he’d get the once-over from the boys of the press and the Secret Service would confiscate his negatives and destroy them.
The first president to reveal to the American people his health in real time was Eisenhower. His very first day in office he met with his personal physician, Dr. Howard Snyder, also a career army man and general. The new president made the decision right there and then that there would be no FDR-like concealment. Any health problems would be told to the American people in real time. And so they were. The American people knew of the heart attack and the stroke and the ileitis as Eisenhower suffered from each and other maladies during his presidency. Almost nothing was concealed except for his frequent flatulence.75
History has in some instances been unfair and inaccurate to Snyder, such as when he was falsely accused by liberal author Evan Thomas of misdiagnosing Ike’s heart attack, though later it was shown Snyder probably saved Eisenhower’s life. In fact he was a superb physician, a personal friend, and the person who convinced Ike to give up his four-packs-a-day cigarette habit and take up painting to calm his nerves.76
In 1961, JFK reverted back to the concealment policies of FDR and Wilson, thus the public had no inkling of his Addison’s disease or his drug dependencies, his ulcers, his colitis, or the fact that he wore a back brace and a lift in one shoe because one of his legs was shorter. RFK had once famously quipped that “if a mosquito bit Jack Kennedy, the mosquito would die.”77
LBJ vulgarly displayed his appendix scar for the American public, but they did not know of his other problems including the drinking and ongoing battle to quit cigarette smoking. Nixon? Forget it. The drinking and the pills and the paranoid rants were all concealed from the voters. Ford never had any real health problems (except for his bad football knees that caused him to fall down sometimes and that caused unfair speculation), but Betty Ford publicly revealed her breast cancer surgery during his presidency. Her drug and alcohol problems came out after they left the White House, so no one knew at the time she used to slip away in the afternoon and go drink by herself in the back of PW’s Saloon on Nineteenth Street, the Secret Service posted to protect her privacy. Jimmy Carter was more open, such as telling the Americans about his persistent hemorrhoids.
The Reagans took a page from Eisenhower and decided to let the American people know from the beginning of the state of their health. Reagan’s age at the time of his election—sixty-nine, turning seventy just one month after the 1981 inaugural—was a major issue at the time, even as he was what gerontologists called “young-old.” Some of the characteristics of these healthy Americans included “greater social contact,” “better health and vision,” and “fewer significant life events.”78 Reagan was very social his whole life, and while he had atrocious vision, his health was always excellent. Though advanced in years, they did not exhibit the individualities of other oldsters.
Reagan did not look old but only older—except for the veins on his hands—and certainly did not act old, not with the horseback riding and the constant clearing of brush (a method of conserving ground wa
ter and to prevent wildfires that few Easterners understood), and the axes and chainsaws and swimming and other strenuous activities. The dark, luxurious hair also helped, but it was more than appearances. Sheila Tate, Mrs. Reagan’s press secretary, told of how it took him several weeks of convalescing at the White House after the shooting, but being startled one day to see the president “bounding down the hall. And Nancy Reagan, ever the protector, held out her hands . . . and said ’slow down, slow down.’ And he came pounding up and he joked, ’I can’t help it, it’s my boyish exuberance.’ ”79 He was hard of hearing in his left ear, and he had his appendix removed in the 1940s. But his physique and his indomitable belief in his physical capabilities carried him through all.
At his birth, Reagan was a gigantic ten pounds, and his mother had such a strenuous time delivering him she was advised by her doctor not to have any more children.80 When Reagan was a child, his mother had the influenza at a time before antibiotics, and he related how his family doctor told him to give her moldy cheese, which may have cured her of the infection.81
Even when Reagan was shot, there was only a confused, but understandable, initial attempt by the White House to conceal just how close he’d come to death. Although for whatever reasons the national media also chose to downplay the seriousness of his injuries. Maybe because when he arrived at the hospital he got out on his own steam, hitched up his trousers as he always did, and walked in and then collapsed, but out of sight of spectators. He had lost half the blood in his body, had nearly gone into shock, and then had his chest cut in half to find a bullet that was one inch away from his heart. The doctors at George Washington were amazed at the musculature of Reagan when they began cutting his skin. Tip O’Neill once accidently brushed up against Reagan and said his arm “was like iron.”82
Last Act Page 16