Reagan

by Bob Spitz

  Nofziger’s chief asset as a political strategist was his relationship with the press. Reporters were his brethren and favorite drinking buddies. As a former journalist, he understood their job and the access they required to file stories. Their relationship was symbiotic—even at times too much so. “Lyn was someone, I suspect, who loved to spill the beans,” says Ed Meese, which was as polite an understatement as anyone could offer. Jim Lake, who replaced Nofziger as the campaign’s press secretary in 1976, put it in stronger terms: “He was a loose cannon, and it created trouble.” Nancy Reagan led the charge to get rid of him on the stump. Again and again, she complained about Nofziger’s irreverence. “Oh, I wish he wouldn’t do that,” she’d lament. And his chronically rumpled appearance annoyed her no end. “Nancy thought of Lyn as a coarse individual,” says Ed Meese. “He didn’t fit in with her Beautiful People aesthetic.” According to an intimate, “He did not dress to impress,” especially with the food-stained Mickey Mouse ties he sported at events. And Nancy found his sense of humor offensive. Most of all, Meese claims, she never forgave him for outing Phil Battaglia to the press in 1967. “He was not, in her estimation, properly disciplined.”

  Mike Deaver, on the other hand, was meticulous to a fault, and for that he was one of both Nancy and Ronald Reagan’s most trusted confidants.

  “From the very start, the three of us hit it off,” Nancy wrote in her 1989 biography, My Turn. There was something about Mike’s character that spoke to their individual sensibilities. Deaver was a self-described poor boy from Bakersfield, California, whose “parents had scrimped and studied price tags and saved to buy appliances on a monthly plan.” Ronald Reagan’s upbringing was remarkably similar. “In that respect, from the beginning I felt an identity with him,” Deaver recalled. They shared stories about the hard times they had growing up, about how poor they had been, and about the rigors of pulling themselves up from their bootstraps. There was a kinship that developed through their hardscrabble experiences. “Mike was emotionally tied to Reagan,” says Sheila Tate, later Nancy Reagan’s press secretary. “They were like alter egos. They understood each other so well.”

  By the time Deaver joined Reagan’s Sacramento administration in 1966 as an aide to Bill Clark, he’d managed to transcend the shortcomings of his youth—not as a glamorous movie star, like his boss, but by capitalizing on an ingratiating personality. He had razor-sharp instincts along with style, and he understood how to cater to the Reagans. “Mike had a great gift in that he could sense what made the two Reagans happy,” says Pete Hannaford, who became Deaver’s business partner between the campaigns. From the day Deaver was promoted to be the governor’s executive secretary, he made a determined effort to help Ronald and Nancy find small comforts—to put them at ease—in a job and a city that often bewildered them. “He babysat their son Ron and took the boy places,” George Steffes recalls, “and he knew just what to say—and when to say it—to defuse any tense situation involving the governor.” Deaver later wrote of Ronald Reagan, “I had never known anyone so unable to deal with close personal conflict.” He saw behind the governor’s assured public leading-man image to where the Midwestern reticence still constrained him, and made an effort to distract him by talking about Hollywood and the movies. “I enjoyed listening when he got the urge to reminisce,” Deaver recalled, and he helped cultivate that urge every time they were alone. He knew that if things went smoothly for Reagan—if he felt relaxed and confident and in control—he would be at his best, and Deaver went to extraordinary lengths to nurture that mood. “He was the first priority, even above myself or my family,” Deaver acknowledged.

  With Nancy, Deaver played the Bob Cummings role—the fey, gossipy friend she needed to unwind with and confide in. The image Deaver cultivated with her was what Lyn Nofziger described as “much more than a purse-carrier,” more like a professional son—the son she’d always wanted who shared her interests and social life. He loved hearing about the glamorous escapades with her well-heeled Los Angeles crowd and her excursions into the couture salons of Beverly Hills. He took an interest in astrology. He was always able to cheer her up; he could make her laugh and take the chill off in frosty situations. According to an aide of Nancy Reagan’s, he “had the personality and the ability to anticipate her needs,” which were not limited to the intrusions of government and the press. “Deaver was a great piano player,” George Steffes recalls, “and whenever there was a function at the Executive Mansion, Mike would burn through a repertoire of show tunes and standards.” At smaller, more intimate soirees, Nancy might sidle up to the piano and croon a rendition of “Our Love Is Here to Stay” or “Just the Way You Look Tonight.” She had a good voice, not powerful but polished, and Deaver knew just how to show it off.

  In time, Deaver’s involvement with Nancy Reagan took on a stealthier shade. “He was her eyes and ears,” says John Sears, who kept Deaver in the dark when he preferred that certain strategies not be reported. Staffers referred to it as “the Mommy Watch,” in which Deaver served as a conduit to Nancy on her husband’s well-being and, conversely, interceded between her demands and the outside world. She could be difficult and intimidating. “One thing you learn,” Lyn Nofziger pointed out, “there is no sense getting into an argument with Nancy Reagan. You can’t win.” As Mike Deaver acknowledged, she was “a tenacious opponent,” intense and occasionally vindictive, and when push came to shove, she often enlisted Deaver in her efforts to shove. When appropriate, he gamely conspired with her to vanquish a foe with whom she had a grievance—or tried to talk her out of it. “Deaver knew how to deal with her,” says Jim Kuhn, later a special assistant in the White House. “He had a way of keeping her calm that nobody else could—calmer than even Ronnie. She really trusted Mike Deaver . . . and she didn’t trust that many people.”

  Now, in 1978, Lyn Nofziger and Mike Deaver were enlisted, in separate endeavors, to keep the Reagan brand attractive and visible. They were devoted to the core, unwavering in their love and dedication. Both men were convinced that his presidential appeal remained stronger than ever—and equally convinced that he was determined to run in 1980.

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  There had been hints. As early as two days after the 1976 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan confessed he “wouldn’t rule out and wouldn’t rule in” another bid for the presidency. He was no longer “the reluctant candidate” of previous campaigns and, he admitted, “I wanted to be president.” He also approved the organization of a makeshift campaign committee for 1980. Paul Laxalt, Lyn Nofziger, Mike Deaver, Pete Hannaford, economic adviser Martin Anderson, John Sears, pollster Richard Wirthlin, and the deep-pocketed contributors—“we all kept in touch,” says Ed Meese. “We were like a political reserve unit, ready to spring into action.” Their forums were informal at first—get-togethers from time to time in Reagan’s Pacific Palisades living room to discuss speech themes, messages, and the political process. Richard Allen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and an adviser to the Nixon White House, was brought in to shore up foreign policy and national defense. “Reagan was less than well prepared on those issues,” Allen recalls, “but he had good instincts.”

  Allen recommended taking Reagan on a series of foreign trips to gain some credibility, burnish his credentials, introduce him to world leaders, and bank a wealth of media coverage. They would be “look-and-listen visits,” as Pete Hannaford dubbed them—Asia first, in April 1978, and then a European swing in November of that year. “We wanted to present Reagan as a statesman—and knowledgeable,” Hannaford says.

  As arrangements for the trip were made, Nancy Reagan decided to accept an invitation from the Iranian ambassador to visit Tehran at the request of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. It presented a ticklish situation. Criticism of the shah had been building all year. “It’s not a good idea, politically or otherwise,” Hannaford and Allen agreed, but there was no changing Nancy’s mind. To circumvent a possible backlash
, they mapped out an itinerary that featured a Tokyo audience with the American ambassador, Mike Mansfield; Taiwan, where crowds lined the streets waving American and Nationalist Chinese flags; and Hong Kong, for a flyover of the new territories; with media coverage in each, then a quick stopover in Tehran on the back end. “And as far as I know,” Hannaford says, “not a word about the Iran trip ever made it into a newspaper.”

  The European trip was more productive. The key country was West Germany, where Reagan had never been and needed exposure. There was a long meeting with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, followed by Helmut Kohl, head of the Christian Democratic Union and the country’s future leader. Afterward, Reagan was taken to the Axel Springer House near the Reichstag, giving him a bird’s-eye view over the Berlin Wall where, a few weeks earlier, a young man had attempted to vault the wall and was machine-gunned, his body left hanging as an object lesson. Reagan declined a closer look at the wall, but its forbidding mass left an indelible impression. Later, he recalled a graffiti scrawl spray-painted across a bullet-riddled patch of concrete: “Those beyond this wall live in a concentration camp.” Richard Allen claimed Reagan turned to him and said, “You know, Dick, we’ve got to find a way to knock this thing down.”

  London was eminently more upbeat. Reagan had a visit scheduled to see Margaret Thatcher. He had met her in the spring of 1975, during a trip arranged by Justin Dart. She had just become the Conservative Party leader, with an office so small that when Winston Churchill III stopped in to say hello there was no room for him to sit down. “I liked her immediately,” Reagan said, sensing by their mutual interests that they were destined to be political “soul mates.” She was first and foremost a free-market economist and a bitter opponent of Soviet Communism—both attitudes that dovetailed with his beliefs. Pete Hannaford recalled their attraction as “two peas in a pod.” He says, “They had been great admirers at a distance, but took to each other immediately and saw eye to eye on policy—instant chemistry.” This time, she was on the verge of winning the big election and her focus was on the Soviet threat—the fact that the Russians had SS-20 missiles aimed at every capital in Western Europe. Her message sank in very clearly with Reagan, who grasped how desperately eager she seemed to solve, or at least neutralize, this problem, hopefully with American assistance.

  The meeting with Thatcher reaffirmed a growing concern—more than a concern, an anxiety, a dread—of nuclear war. According to Martin Anderson, Reagan’s domestic-policy adviser, “the challenge to diminish the threat of that war was always foremost on his mind.” He was convinced that the economy could be fixed with American know-how, but nuclear annihilation was something else entirely. “A nuclear war couldn’t be won by either side,” Reagan observed. The only way to assure that? “It must never be fought.”

  Still, he was opposed to any treaty arising out of the ongoing Strategic Arms Limitation Talks—SALT II—between Jimmy Carter and the Soviet Union. In the SALT I negotiations, which led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in May of 1972, neither side committed to reducing nuclear weapons. The agreement only tempered the pace of growth by freezing the number of strategic ballistic missiles at existing levels. SALT II sought to curtail the manufacture of strategic nuclear weapons by banning new missile programs. Reagan believed this was self-defeating. To him, arms limitation wasn’t the same thing as arms reduction. As early as 1976, he said, “I’ve always liked the idea of START”—STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty—“instead of SALT.” When he began preaching this vision of a world free of all nuclear missiles, even his closest advisers “just smiled” patronizingly. The existing policy at the time was the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, abbreviated ironically—or not—as MAD, which spelled the annihilation of both attacker and defender; in other words, a standoff so long as no one pulled the trigger. Reagan thought that was completely insane. A nuclear Armageddon didn’t suit his worldview, but neither did a treaty that refused to go far enough. It seemed futile to pursue SALT II, and he began expressing himself freely on that topic upon his return to the States.

  At the end of 1978 and into early 1979, he began to turn up the heat on the Carter administration. The passage of the Panama Canal Treaty in April 1978 infuriated Ronald Reagan; U.S. foreign policy was nothing more than wishful thinking; arms-control negotiations seemed riddled with concessions to the Soviet Union; America’s human-rights policy was limited to merely scolding dictators instead of standing up to authoritarianism; and South Africa—“whatever we may think of [its] internal policies”—provided mineral riches and a strategic position that should not be ignored. He also spoke passionately opposing California’s proposed ban of smoking in public buildings and offices, where he said “owners would have to foot the cost for the No Smoking signs,” and made his feelings known that he opposed “ballot measures . . . that advanced certain ‘gay rights,’” feeling that “these tended to promote and advocate such an alternative lifestyle.” Mandating air bags in automobiles didn’t fare any better. “If any of us would like to install such a device in the family car, shouldn’t that be our decision to make?” he asked rhetorically in a syndicated radio broadcast. Setting the record straight, he also made it clear that he opposed abortion—period—admitting that the Therapeutic Abortion Act was full of loopholes and his signing it as governor of California misguided. To be clear on where he stood, he stated categorically: “I believe interrupting a pregnancy means the taking of a human life.”

  “There were other serious problems,” he said, reflecting on the issues of the day. “Unemployment, inflation, and interest rates were climbing, and it looked as if administration policies would lead the nation into a serious recession.”

  The time was fast approaching when he had to take more than a stand with the issues, and decide once and for all whether to challenge Jimmy Carter in 1980. He already knew Republican hopefuls were circling the wagons. Philip Crane was the first to throw his hat in the ring, announcing his candidacy on August 2, 1978. The conservative Illinois congressman was an avowed Reagan supporter in 1976, but he suspected age would eliminate the former governor from making a 1980 bid. Reagan would be seventy if and when he ascended to the Oval Office, and the age factor generated a constant drumbeat. If victorious, he’d become the oldest elected president in U.S. history. “Age should be the least consideration,” he bristled in a 1978 interview. But journalists mentioned it every chance they got, and public opinion strongly suggested his age remained a sensitive issue. “People don’t knock him as too conservative,” explained a voter at a rally. “But they bring up his age.” “Love Ronald Reagan, but I can’t vote for a man who’s going to be seventy years old when he’s elected,” a Republican responded when the subject of age arose. “I’m sorry, but he’s waited too long.” For what it was worth, Reagan insisted he felt “thirty-nine or younger”—a man at midlife who was in great physical shape, radiated megatons of energy, and maintained a schedule that would test men half his age. “Look, it’s steady as a rock,” he told a convention crowd, exhibiting an outstretched hand as evidence. “Last week I was busting my keester at the ranch splitting rails.”

  “The age issue is a cover,” John Sears scoffed when it came up in early meetings. “It was ammunition for anyone interested in challenging him for the nomination—and for the press, which needed an issue—but meaningless in the long run. As long as he was in the public eye, scoring with voters, age wouldn’t factor in a decision at all.”

  Throughout the first ten months of 1979, Reagan’s scorched-earth schedule of speeches often crammed more than twenty-five appearances into fifteen days a month as he crisscrossed the country espousing conservative doctrine. His speaking schedule certainly seemed presidential. In addition to themes of cutting taxes and the despotism of big government, he took on SALT II, a stagnant job market, an energy crisis that had raised the price of gasoline from sixty cents to a dollar a gallon, and soaring inflation. But more important to his agenda than even these issue
s was the message he embraced as the centerpiece of every speech: “Family, Work, Neighborhood, Peace, and Freedom.” Those five themes became the tent pole on which hung all the thinking and policy for the upcoming campaign. “They were the essence of Reagan’s thinking, what took priority in the country,” says Richard Allen, who formulated the platform along with Martin Anderson.

  Family. Work. Neighborhood. Peace. Freedom.

  Reagan used these catchwords—“just five short words,” he said—to illustrate the concept of a “community of shared values.” Values. Family values. It was a phrase he began to turn to frequently, equating it with responsibility, love of country, and basic beliefs. Traditional values imbued him with a “new way of looking at things,” he explained with unforced sincerity. He vowed to dispense with the jargon of professors and bureaucrats in favor of a more straightforward approach that explained programs and policies in terms of how they affected families and neighborhoods. “This isn’t a change in what we believe,” he emphasized. “We are simply putting our belief into understandable language.” The message connected with audiences as never before and left them with an impression of a man whose values, traditional values, were very much like their own. It was a quality they desperately wanted in a leader. This man seemed to have their interests at heart, a way of mending their shattered illusions.