Last Act

by Craig Shirley

  There was something so poignant and romantic about the advance men who prepared the way for Reagan in life now preparing the way for Reagan into eternity. All—Foster, Brennan, Terry, Littlefair, Ahearn, and Hooley—were too grief stricken to say what was on their minds, but they were all thinking the same thing, and besides, as advance men they had been taught to say little in formal or intimate circumstances.

  Discretion was their watchword but so was devotion.

  Hooley, Ahearn, and their colleagues, most Irish, and those not were honorary Irishmen all this evening, had a private Irish wake for the Irishman they had happily devoted their lives to and whom they adored. Hooley whispered to his associates, “We took him home.”99

  Foster was also filled with emotions. “To me, it was an incredible honor to be asked to witness the occasion with this group.” Their “deep loyalty and fondness for President Reagan were unquestionable,” he said.100

  “Then we turned and left, and I remember the sound of equipment starting up,” Hooley said.101 The now former Reagan advance men were not drunk but they were into their cups and that was of little consequence. These were naturally friendly and gregarious guys. They believed, as did Reagan, that the Irish poet was right when he said, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.”102

  Still, it might have been the Bard, not William Butler Yeats, who offered the most appropriate quote—from Richard II—to speak to this time. “His body to that pleasant country’s earth, and his pure soul unto his captain Christ, under whose colours he had fought so long.”103

  CHAPTER 10

  A PRAYER IN SPRING

  “Reagan is indisputably a part of America and he may become a part of American history.”

  A couple of hours after Jim Hooley and company left, workers quietly sealed the tomb of Ronald Reagan. “Reagan’s body was entombed at the Simi Valley library site shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday,” said Duke Blackwood, executive director of the Library and Ronald Reagan Memorial Foundation.1

  After a week of public mourning there was a solitary ending. There was no ceremony, no pomp, no religious statement, just the Lord’s Prayer whispered in near silence. There was only the perfunctory task of a burial. It was all very anticlimactic, very undramatic. “It was not a public event,” Blackwood remarked. Even the family was not present.2

  The limestone gravesite was “a curved wall adorned with shrubbery and ivy.”3 All told, the vault and casket weighed four thousand pounds. Later, a headstone of “Georgian gray granite” was added with his birth and death dates.4

  “The solid mahogany casket was sealed within a bronze-lined vault, seven feet underground inside the crypt, which also includes space for Nancy Reagan.”5 The whole thing was so discreet it was not even entered into the planning book for the week, save a single reference to a solitary person performing a lonely ritual. Instead, the very last line of the playbook created for the implementation of the Reagan funeral ended with one sentence. “9:00 a.m. Library re-opens for business.”6

  Seven hours after the final entombment, tourists were solemnly, respectfully, and quietly gazing at and taking pictures in Simi Valley, California, of the ossuary of Ronald Wilson Reagan, fortieth president of the United States.

  Simi Valley had once been ancient American Indian territory, occupied by the Chumash. The tribe thrived off of small game and fish and were adept at cave painting, building canoes, and weaving baskets. Some believed the name Simi was derived from the Chumash Indian word for “little white clouds.”7 Later, the area was occupied by the Spanish and even later, settlers. The Spanish considered the Chumash to be the most sophisticated of all California’s American Indian tribes.

  Tracks were then laid for the railroad, which helped in the transformation of the area and benefited the citrus farmers that needed to ship their lemons and grapefruit to market. Located in Ventura County, it later became a bedroom community to Los Angeles. Its ruggedly beautiful topography made it ideal for cowboy-and-Indian movies, and Reagan had filmed a number of movies there himself.

  Reagan may well have lasted longer than ninety-three years had it not been for the scourge of Alzheimer’s, but perhaps only God will ever know for sure. Certainly his quality of life—a trendy phrase in 2004—would have lasted longer, and certainly the strain and stress put on Nancy Reagan would have made those ten years vastly different. Still, Reagan was the longest living president, besting John Adams by almost three years. Even the day after his funeral, the Washington Times was reporting about a breakthrough in the understanding of the “ ‘genetic signature’ of aging in the human brain.”8

  His affliction helped to launch a national discussion and millions in increased funding for research for the dreaded infirmity. Cures were pursued aggressively and most researchers were hopeful that a cure or a vaccine would one day be found. Mrs. Reagan threw herself into the cause of Alzheimer’s research, doing as much for it as any First Lady or former First Lady has done for any cause. Her efforts were never appreciated by activists, and those who would never miss a chance to criticize Nancy or the president.

  When she went into the White House, the gentlewomen of the press derided her for not having a cause, as all First Ladies should, don’t you know? She had worked with former POWs from Vietnam and foster grandparents. She made strides with her anti-drug campaign, which again the elites poked fun at on occasion but which did some very good work based on the evidence. Over wine and cheese, the matrons of Georgetown snarkily said the anti-drug campaign was really about her public relations. But no one questioned her work with Alzheimer’s research. At the time, it was estimated that four million Americans suffered from the affliction. The ongoing research was focused on both a cure and prevention.

  The diagnosis was devastating, but Reagan took it calmly. To a person, no one ever came forward and said Reagan ever felt sorry for himself, ever asked God, “Why me, Lord?” He never got down in the dumps, never moped around, simply accepting and working around it and maintaining his uncanny optimism. Mrs. Reagan, as always, took his lumps upon herself, and she more than once asked God, “Why?”

  Part of the debate over Reagan was whether he suffered from Alzheimer’s while he was still in the White House, a notion that his own son Ron advanced in a much-criticized book. Yet the people who knew him best—the staff and close friends—said they saw the same Mr. President. He went to the Mayo Clinic each year to undergo a battery of physical and mental tests and passed each with flying colors. Don Lambro, a nationally syndicated columnist said,

  Over the course of my journalism career, I had many interviews with Reagan in the ’70s and ’80s, two of them in the Oval Office. In both, he was knowledgeable and fully in command of the issues, as he was in the many news conferences he held in prime-time—when he was pummeled with tough questions, not the softballs President Obama gets from a compliant White House press corps.9

  More would be aware of the troubles by the spring of 1994 when the Republican Party held its annual dinner hosted by its chairman Haley Barbour, when Reagan did not seem himself at all. He had difficulty delivering the speech, and while in New York before going to Washington for the GOP dinner had exhibited a behavior that worried Fred Ryan.10

  Mike Deaver, one of Reagan’s closest aides, wrote a frank account of his last meeting with Reagan in 1997, including the painful fact that the Gipper no longer recognized him.

  His disease was progressing, and Nancy was circling the wagons. Soon, only family and those who were tending to the president would be allowed to see him. He looked great . . . but it didn’t take long to realize that Ronald Reagan had no idea who I was, or any interest in why I had walked into his office. A book was in his hands; his attention to it was total. Finally, I slipped over to his side to see what it was.
He was reading a picture book about Traveller, Robert E. Lee’s famous horse. I was heartbroken.11

  Deaver concluded that he’d heard rumors but “I won’t include the grim details here. Suffice to say that a man who has done so much for America can now do so little for himself.”12

  A lot of things happened in American history on June 12. For one thing, it was the birthday of President George H. W. Bush, who’d been born in 1924. To celebrate, he was going to make two parachute jumps so he’d have five total and get a pin from the Golden Knights of the U.S. Army. Barbara Bush could only shake her head and tell her husband, “You don’t need any more pins or any more plaques.”13

  It was the ten-year anniversary of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

  Gasoline had spiked to more than $1.50 per gallon.14

  And in 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame had opened in Cooperstown, the hometown of Abner Doubleday, who ironically was not the father of American baseball. George Washington had written about a game his troops played during the Revolution called “Town Ball” that featured a batted ball and base running. But it was the anniversary of regular season interleague play between the National League and the American League beginning in 1997. Some purists thought it was the end of Western civilization.

  On the other hand, in defense of Western civilization, it was also the anniversary of Reagan’s historic trip to Berlin where he stood in front of a barricade and told a communist dictator to “tear down this wall.”

  Nancy Reagan stipulated that she never wanted to be known as Mrs. Nancy Reagan, the polite way of letting society know a woman was a widow. She made clear to all that she was Mrs. Ronald Reagan and would always be known as such; some women made such choices. Their marriage would be everlasting, even in death.

  His bedroom has been turned back into her den, from where she writes letters, pictures of him all around. Even years later she still slept on one side of their bed, the other side where he slept for more than fifty years unmarked and unwrinkled. The bed is smaller now, but his presence is everywhere.15 The living room goes largely unused. But now, according to Patti, the smells of the house—lavender, bath oils—are all Nancy’s.

  Immediately after the funeral, Reagan memorabilia went up for auction on the eBay website and other Internet sites. Odd trinkets as well as traditional collectibles were also sold at antique stores around the country. The palm cards given out at the Rotunda were already fetching twenty-five dollars and upward, while the programs from the National Cathedral were going for 250 dollars.

  Reagan’s signature had been rising in value for years, and depending on the signed document or item was attracting hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Movie posters, statuettes, record albums, books, fan magazines, buttons, campaign posters, and other Reagan memorabilia were all becoming prized items. Ronald Reagan’s image was eventually issued on three different U.S. postage stamps, and the popular items sold out quickly. Richard Nixon stamps were issued and quickly destroyed—hundreds of thousands of them—because no one wanted to send a letter through the mails with the Trickster’s image.16

  As much as the talking heads talked, they had become more and more quiet as the previous week wore on, letting their viewers drink in the momentous events of the week of the funeral, letting the signifying events reflect the death of a significant American president. The silence of the talking heads was remarkable, but no less so was the coverage because of the networks’ and cable channels’ cessation of advertising, especially on Friday. “But when it came to the day’s centerpiece, the actual funeral for Reagan at the Washington National Cathedral, television transmitted the pictures, words and music, but not its own employees’ interpretations, to a public looking to honor the man, be part of American history or both.”17

  Reagan had been the most dominant figure over the long haul on American television, from 1953—when he signed the deal with GE Theater on CBS—to his passing more than fifty years later—when he was covered by all networks and all cable systems. Even ESPN explored Reagan the athlete, and C-SPAN rebroadcast old speeches and press conferences, and local television stations broadcast old Reagan movies.

  Other historical figures—such as Richard Nixon or John F. Kennedy—had their moments, but no one in the history of the country or the medium of television so ruled the national debate for the length of time Reagan had. Even in the past ten years, during his seclusion as he descended into the black pit of Alzheimer’s, his name, his policies, and his persona governed the national debate. No political figure in American history—save maybe Abraham Lincoln—was invoked in the national debate of ideas and ideologies as much or as often as Reagan. And none was referenced—not even Lincoln—more within the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Indeed, though the sixteenth president was hailed as the founder of the GOP (which wasn’t true; Lincoln’s old adversary John C. Frémont was the first nominee in 1856), Reaganism was becoming rightly recognized as a legitimate political philosophy, overlapping American conservatism and American populism.

  Frank Fahrenkopf, close friend and confidant of Paul Laxalt, who in turn was close friend and confidant of Reagan’s, noticed several years ago as he was walking through an airport terminal that President Obama was on all the television sets giving a speech or a press conference, and yet the travelers continued walking, talking, milling about, utterly and completely ignoring Obama. Fahrenkopf contrasted that with a time twenty-five years earlier, when Reagan was president, and how everybody in a terminal would stop and want to watch and hear what their president was saying when he was on television.

  Laxalt was a master politician in his own right and a master of knowing men and what made them think. He said that Reagan’s belief in himself as a “citizen-politician” was not a “pose.” “Much of life is psychological, and it is Reagan’s genius that he convinced himself and others that he was not really a politician, which inspired unbelievable trust in him.”18

  Ronald Reagan was simply one of the most compelling men in American political history. The course of politics changed because of him. Politicians used to routinely denounce television, as if it was some parlor novelty. Richard Nixon often spoke derisively of television, Eisenhower tolerated it, Truman was awful on it. And LBJ was too hot for it, Ford was too oblivious, Carter was too ill defined. Only Reagan and John Kennedy recognized the power of the little box in people’s living rooms and put it to good use. But they were also among those lucky few men who almost never took a bad photograph. It was seemingly impossible to catch either man looking bad because in almost any pose, their rugged good looks shone. Unlike Nixon, who almost never looked good on television even when he was smiling and jovial, which wasn’t often.

  Life was moving on.

  Bill Clinton released his memoirs and while desperate to claim a comparison to Ronald Reagan, no one was having it. The only debate ever held regarding Reagan’s conduct in the Oval Office was whether he had entered the presidential office without a tie and jacket. He sometimes did, but mostly on a Saturday morning to tape his weekly radio address before heading to Camp David. In fact, there was no comparison between the two men or their administrations. Not in any way, shape, or form could one be drawn between the two men. They had absolutely nothing in common as men, husbands, fathers, or politicians. Clinton’s longtime advisor Paul Begala had at one point wanted to write a book favorably comparing the two men, but was talked out of it by sane friends.

  The weekly reports of DVD sales had Miracle at number one but among rentals, the movie Paycheck was number one. The more popular television programs were The Bernie Mac Show, The West Wing, NCIS, and Friends. Also Law and Order in its twenty-eight flavors.

  Mikhail Gorbachev for a time resisted acknowledging that the Soviets had lost the Co
ld War and resisted even harder admitting that the West—and Reagan—had won. But he did not hesitate crediting Reagan with having core principles. “He was a person committed to certain values and traditions. For him the American dream was not just rhetoric. It was something he felt in his heart. In that sense he was an idealistic American.”19

  Bill Buckley, whom Reagan had known for years—long before ever meeting Gorbachev—said, in his typical understated fashion, “Reagan is indisputably a part of America and he may become a part of American history.”20

  Joanne Drake said it took six months to send thank you notes to everybody they had heard from when Reagan passed away.21 A little more than a month after the funeral, Nancy Reagan hosted a sumptuous private dinner and reception for the staff who worked such long hours, days, and years planning and implementing the funeral. It took place at the Hotel Bel Air, where she often liked to have lunch with “the girls” in her circle of friends. The invitation said, “With heartfelt gratitude for your service, sacrifice and dedication.”22 Nancy Reagan within weeks sent handwritten and tender notes to the honorary pallbearers.23 She also wrote a letter to the citizens of Simi Valley, thanking them for their patience,24 and one to former president Bush, whom she called “George,” in which she wished him a happy birthday and celebrated his parachute jump. “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the beautiful tribute you gave to Ronnie . . . Please give my love to Barbara.”25 She also wrote a letter to the American people on July 4, thanking them.26

  Reagan’s fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon was writing letters, mourning a fallen brother.27 Randall Wallace, who wrote the lyrics to the song “Mansions of the Lord,” wrote Nancy a sweet note, telling her he thought that Reagan was “among the greatest of our presidents” and how delighted he was that the song had been a part of the funeral at the National Cathedral, and how he’d written the lyrics in the wake of his own father’s death.28