“There you go again”: Reagan-Carter presidential debate, October 28, 1980.
“any attack on an embassy”: U.S. Department of State.
ramped up his attack on Reagan: Carter speech, Akron, Ohio, November 3, 1980.
“How many of you”: Carter speech, Seattle, November 3, 1980.
CHAPTER TWO: STARTING OUT
This is my personal backstory, the prelude to my involvement with the Reagan-O’Neill rivalry. Because they formed such an important part of my life, they are memories with deep footprints. They are hard examples of how each step a person takes becomes the course set for the next as well as the prerequisite for getting to take it.
Each of the roles I’ve played since leaving my beloved Chapel Hill—those unforgettable two years in Swaziland, my five years working for the Senate and then four years in the White House—now reside in the public record. It is a salutary benefit of service in the U.S. government.
Most important to me, these early career experiences serve as a sturdy foundation for my daily commentary on American politics and government.
CHAPTER THREE: STARRING RONALD REAGAN
“If you live in the river, you should make friends with the crocodiles”: Indian proverb.
Among its bullet points: Cannon, President Reagan, p. 93.
On the eve of: MOH, p. 26.
In 1936, at the age: Farrell, Tip O’Neill, pp. 66–69.
So it was in 1949: Ibid., p. 107.
“We find him very”: Boston Globe, February 12, 1981.
“the admiral of the ship”: TPO, November 12, 1980.
“the proper course”: Ibid.
“Tip is a very practical”: United Press International, November 6, 1980.
“Hannibal Jerkin”: Farrell, Tip O’Neill, p. 452.
“I don’t intend to allow”: TPO, November 12, 1980.
Reagan had been nursing: Reeves, President Reagan, p. 11.
“Why should I have done”: Gerald and Deborah Hart Strober, Reagan: The Man and His Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 131.
He and Nancy first: Washington Post, November 19, 1980.
“Like Jimmy Carter”: James Baker with Steve Fiffer, Work Hard, Study . . . and Keep Out of Politics! (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006), p. 137.
“I knew that President Reagan”: James Baker with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. 334.
“I’ve known every speaker”: “Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, June 10, 1983,” Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
“We were particularly”: Author interview with James Baker.
“He’d been aware of all that”: Author interview with Max Friedersdorf.
Exactly two weeks: TPO, November 18, 1980.
“When President-elect Reagan”: MOH, pp. 331–32.
“He told me how”: Ibid., p. 332.
“The president-elect seemed to”: Ibid., p. 333.
“ ‘Absolutely, Mr. President’ ”: Ibid.
“Reagan was proud”: Ibid., p. 332.
“He seemed genuinely surprised”: Ibid.
“My father didn’t get”: Author conversation with Tom O’Neill.
warmest oath-taking day on record: http://www.inaugural.senate.govswearing-in/event/ronald-reagan-1981.
Later he’d ask: Reeves, President Reagan, p. 2.
“the adversary relationships”: Reagan Toast at the Inaugural Luncheon, January 20, 1981.
“I look forward to working”: Ibid.
“With thanks to Almighty God”: Ibid.
Before leaving the Capitol: Farrell, Tip O’Neill, p. 547.
“Government is not the solution”: Reagan Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
CHAPTER FOUR: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
“Civility is not a sign of weakness”: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
“It won’t be the last time”: Christian Science Monitor, November 20, 1980.
By January’s end: Cannon, President Reagan, p. 83.
“The first fundamental”: Ibid., p. 84.
“The second fundamental”: Ibid.
For his part: MOH, p. 336.
“so clearly preposterous”: Ibid., p. 337.
“Surely everybody could see”: Ibid.
In early February: Reagan Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
“I’m speaking to you tonight”: Ibid.
“Last night, he was carefully”: Washington Post, February 6, 1981.
“He comes across beautifully”: New York Times, February 7, 1981.
Included in a White House: RR, February 6, 1981.
Not long after this: RR, February 16, 1981.
Among the others on hand: Ibid.
“Maybe Tip & I”: Ibid.
“There are times when real life”: MOH, p. 27.
“He’s a terrific storyteller”: Ibid., p. 334.
It had, according to: Author interview with Max Friedersdorf.
“We didn’t discuss”: TPO, February 17, 1981.
That afternoon the Speaker’s: RR, February 17, 1981.
“Tip had last word”: Ibid.
“by 77 to 17 percent”: Washington Post, February 19, 1981.
“I have been up here”: TPO, February 17, 1981.
“With a Republican in”: MOH, p. 340.
“And with Jimmy Carter”: Ibid.
Two nights after: Reagan Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery, February 18, 1981.
“A few weeks ago”: Ibid.
“I would direct a question”: Ibid.
In the White House meetings: MOH, p. 360.
“You want to talk to him”: Author interview with James Baker.
“How about this?”: Author conversation with Richard Allen.
CHAPTER FIVE: JOINING THE FIGHT
“I’ve learned that people only pay attention to what they discover for themselves”: Pretty Poison, 1968.
When Reagan’s top lobbyist: Author conversation with Max Friedersdorf.
“tremendously strong”: TPO, February 24, 1981.
“I don’t know how many”: Ibid.
honeymoon was “wearing thin”: Ibid., March 4, 1981.
Asked in early March: TPO, March 4, 1981.
“We are not ready to play”: Ibid.
“What I am curious of”: Ibid.
“We haven’t communicated”: Ibid., March 11, 1981.
“He was very persuasive”: Author interview with Susan O’Neill.
“As you know”: TPO, January 29, 1980.
“Nobody Knows What Happened to McCarty”: Farrell, Tip O’Neill, pp. 4–5.
“I was convinced”: Mott, p. 344.
“You’ve made my day”: Washington Post, March 6, 1981.
“We have undone”: UPI, March 19, 1981.
CHAPTER SIX: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
“I do not know that in our time”: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, remarks on the Senate floor, April 2, 1981.
The young Jerry Parr: Del Quentin Wilber, Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), p. 18.
When he was nine: Ibid.
The nine-year-old: Ibid.
In 1962, at the age of: Ibid.
Over the following years: Ibid., p. 19.
In March 1981: Ibid., p. 21.
Determined to make Foster: Ibid., pp. 36–39, 54–58.
Since a central plotline: Ibid., p. 37.
On March 30, 1981: Ibid., p. 77.
“I hope you’ll forgive”: Reagan Remarks at the National Conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO.
As soon as he’d finished: Wilber, Rawhide Down, pp. 76–80.
“Let’s get out of here”: Ibid., p. 83.
“My day to address”: RR, March 30, 1981.
Here’s White House detail:
Parr FBI report, March 31, 1981.
Suddenly Agent Parr: Wilber, Rawhide Down, p. 90.
“Okay”: Ibid., p. 91.
Barely three minutes: Ibid., p. 95.
“Honey, I forgot to”: Ibid., p. 138.
Within a week: Reeves, President Reagan, p. 48.
Baker learned: Letter to author from Max Friedersdorf.
“Jim called me with”: Ibid.
“I was in the room”: Ibid.
“The president still seemed groggy”: Ibid.
“ ‘I’d better be going’ ”: Ibid.
“I suspect that in”: MOH, p. 336.
The week before the shooting: RR, March 21, 1981.
“I looked up at the presidential”: Reagan, An American Life, p. 254.
CHAPTER SEVEN: RONALD REAGAN’S JOURNEY
“Go West, young man”: Fred R. Shapiro, ed., The Yale Book of Quotations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 322.
in Tampico, Illinois: Marc Eliot, Reagan: The Hollywood Years (New York: Crown Archetype, 2008), p. 13.
Over the next seven years the Reagans moved five times in Illinois: Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 12.
nicknamed “Dutch”: Eliot, Reagan, 13.
was nine: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 12.
Now they moved again: Ibid.
His father, Jack, a salesman: Ibid., p. 11.
Neil Reagan: Ibid.
Jack Reagan drank too much: Ibid.
“the Irish curse”: Cannon, President Reagan, p. 176.
Reagan would write: Ronald Reagan, An American Life: The Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 33.
playing varsity football: Eliot, Reagan, 21.
enough to be elected: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 21.
He was also: Eliot, Reagan, 21.
Setting out to convince: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 24.
first for a fraternity: Ibid.
his majors had been economics and sociology: Ibid., pp. 32–33.
Davenport, Iowa: Eliot, Reagan, p. 27.
There he landed a slot: Ibid., p. 30.
After Davenport: Ibid., p. 32.
In 1937: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 49.
five years after saying good-bye: Eliot, Reagan, pp. 26–30.
“goodbye sports”: Wayne Federman, The Atlantic, November 14, 2011.
twenty-six-year-old: Eliot, Reagan, p. 13.
A native New Yorker: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 75.
Returning after her four years: Nancy Reagan at Smith College 1911–1943, Reagan Foundation website.
He’d gone as: Eliot, Reagan, p. 47.
But the chance to take: Morris, Dutch, p. 130.
to keep an eye on the Chicago Cubs: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 48.
In Los Angeles: Eliot, Reagan, p. 42.
in the Biltmore Hotel’s: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 48.
One performer was a singer: Ibid.
He sent a note: Eliot, Reagan, p. 42.
It was a break: Ibid., p. 48.
he be billed as Ronald, not “Dutch”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, pp. 49–50.
Reagan’s first film: Ibid., p. 53.
Love Is on the Air was: Ibid., p. 54.
The reviews: Eliot, Reagan, p. 53.
Over the next few years: Ibid., pp. 353–55.
He appeared as a military cadet: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 54.
and as an army private: Turner Classic Movies.
In a change of pace: Eliot, Reagan, pp. 94–96.
1940, the year Knute Rockne: Ibid., p. 356.
On the Warner lot: Ibid., p. 69.
Each day: Ibid., pp. 70–71.
When O’Brien won: Ibid., p. 113.
he soon learned from Reagan: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 55.
and that he’d grown up worshipping both: Eliot, Reagan, p. 116.
died in 1920: Jack Cavanaugh, Sports Illustrated, December 30, 1991.
he’d once even started: Reagan, An American Life, pp. 90–91.
he brought in: Ibid., p. 91.
“This is a helluva important role”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 55.
offering to read Rockne’s lines: Ibid.
premiered in South Bend: Eliot, Reagan, p. 117.
the role he himself considered his best: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 57.
as he often did in those years: Nicholas Wapshott, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage (New York: Sentinel, 2007), p. 49.
Opening in early 1942: Bob Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House, 1911 to 1980 (New York: Warner Books, 2004), p. 150.
“Where’s the rest of me?”: Eliot, Reagan, p. 142.
what Reagan’s character, Drake McHugh, demands to know: Ibid.
the title of his 1965 autobiography: Ibid., p. 4.
Measured by box office: Ibid., p. 357.
with Errol Flynn: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 66.
Two years earlier they’d appeared together in Santa Fe Trail: Ibid., p. 55.
Desperate Journey follows the perilous path: Ibid., p. 154.
On December 8, 1941: Prologue, The National Archives, Winter 2001, Vol. 33, No. 4.
The movie industry: Eliot, Reagan, p. 161.
The month before he’d moved: Ronald Reagan Library.
Arriving in Hollywood, he was appointed: Ibid.
two months after Kings Row: Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 150.
kept him from assignment to a combat unit: Ronald Reagan Library.
Transferring from the cavalry: Ibid.
then to the just-created First Motion Picture Unit: Eliot, p. 161.
Never before had a military unit: Ibid.
It was this unit: Ibid., p. 162.
now dubbed Fort Roach: Ibid., p. 162.
In 1943: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
he’d narrated: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 68.
won the Oscar: The Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences.
Though he both appeared in and voiced-over numerous movies: Eliot, p. 166.
he was also: Ronald Reagan Library.
at the end of his active duty: Eliot, Reagan, p. 176.
and Burbank: Ibid., p. 163.
wife of eight years: Ibid., p. 7.
She’d become a Warner: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 63.
though often as an uncredited: Internet Movie Database.
chorus girl: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 63.
thirty or so pictures: Internet Movie Database.
A native Missourian: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 63.
her showbiz start in radio, as a singer: Eliot, Reagan, p. 81.
She’d also been twice married: Ibid., pp. 81–82.
But by 1948: Ibid., p. 179.
She’d been nominated: Ibid., p. 194.
the Hollywood gossip mills went to town: Ibid., p. 213.
“Don’t ask Ronnie”: Wapshott, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, p. 43.
“You bore me . . . Leave!”: Eliot, Reagan, p. 210.
By his own account: Reagan, An American Life, p. 47.
would shut down the campus: Ibid.
Reagan was the one picked: Ibid., p. 48.
“When I came to actually”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, pp. 25–26.
Robert Cummings, his Kings Row costar: Eliot, Reagan, p. 145.
Nancy, whom Ronald married in 1952: Ibid., p. 253.
One, he wrote, was the “public”: Ron Reagan, My Father at 100 (New York: Viking Penguin, 2011), p. 13.
he wasn’t being considered for parts: Eliot, Reagan, pp. 176–77.
He shot a few: Ibid., pp. 357–59.
a young actress ten years his junior: Ibid., p. 7.
she’d dated Clark Gable: Ibid., p. 230.
“My life really began”: Nancy Reagan Biography, White House Historical Association.
who’d voted for FDR: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 37.
had backed Helen Gahagan Doug
las: Ibid., p. 101.
would remain a registered: Morris, Dutch, p. 326.
In 1937 Reagan had joined: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 85.
In 1946 he became: Ibid., p. 86.
Ugly violence: Eliot, Reagan, p.190.
In the weeks that followed: Ibid., pp. 188–91.
“Ronnie Reagan has turned”: Ibid., p. 192.
Reagan would go on to serve: Reagan Biography, SAG-AFTRA.
“citizen-politician”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 82.
His audience: Ibid., pp. 208–9.
While acknowledging: Ibid.
When asked by Robert Stripling: Ibid.
two-week stand: Morris, Dutch, p. 295.
“It’s a long way”: Ibid.
Within weeks Reagan began: Eliot, Reagan, p. 275.
first and only continuing host: Thomas W. Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 3.
Airing on Sundays: Eliot, Reagan, p. 276.
James Dean: Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan, p. 57.
Natalie Wood: Suzanne Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), p. 158.
Lee Marvin: Robert J. Lentz, Lee Marvin: His Films and Career (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), p. 194.
Sammy Davis, Jr.: Gary Fishgall, Gonna Do Great Things: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. (New York: Scribner, 2003), pp. 123–24.
Over the eight years it ran: Encyclopedia of Television: A–C (volume 1), Horace Newcomb, ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 968.
Bill Clinton: Newsweek, June 21, 2004.
Traveling to hundreds of cities and towns: Morris, Dutch, p. 305.
“I am seen by more people”: Ibid., pp. 304–5.
As of 1958 he was one: Ibid., p. 305.
at least a quarter of a million of them: Reagan, An American Life, p. 128.
the relationship ended abruptly in 1962: Eliot, Reagan, p. 325.
In 1964 Ronald Reagan emerged: Ibid., p. 112.
What brought him this: Ibid., pp. 123–25.
the Goldwater campaign paid to have it nationally televised: Eliot, Reagan, pp. 333–34.
“a rendezvous with destiny”: Reagan speech, October 27, 1964.
It was a speech he’d been polishing: Eliot, Reagan, p. 333.
When Reagan ran: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 160.
To denigrate Reagan’s profession: Ibid., p. 116.
a televised campaign ad: Ibid., p. 151.
“As a politician”: Reagan, My Father At 100, p. 24.
Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked Page 35