by Bob Spitz
“a real black mark”: Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater,” p. 14.
“I was scared stiff”: Ibid.
“I’ll bet he’s a fag”: Ibid., p. 10.
“That’s the way, Ron!”: “He would not leave a department with the men over there scowling and snarling.” Ibid.
“He was the most inventive”: Thomas W. Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 64.
“the Communists had pretty much”: Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater,” p. 16.
“There can be no moral justification”: RR, quoted in Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Businessman’s Crusade Against the New Deal (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), p. 114.
The ninety-first percentile!: “True, I’d been making handsome money, but that handsome money lost a lot of its beauty going through the 91 percent bracket.” WTROM, p. 245; “I was in the ninety-four percent tax bracket.” AAL, p. 117.
“I was seeing the same people”: Lou Cannon, Reagan (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), p. 94.
“spreading its influence”: “The Powerhouse,” Time, May 12, 1959, pp. 76–85.
“the importance of recognizing”: Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan, p. 89.
“out there, beating the bushes”: AAL, p. 129.
“one of the most recognized”: Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 305.
“His speech was always the same”: Paul Gavaghan, quoted in Harry Levinson and Stuart Rosenthal, CEO: Corporate Leadership in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1984), p. 20.
“Thirty-four percent of your phone bill”: GE Schenectady News, Jan. 30, 1959, p. 3.
were “absolutely uncanny”: “It’s an absolutely uncanny, extrasensory ability the man has.” Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater,” p. 20.
Ronald Reagan refused to believe: “A star doesn’t slip. He’s ruined by bad stories and worse casting.” RR quoted in Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, undated clipping, c. March 1950.
“the kind that are addicted”: RR, address at the Photoplay awards dinner, quoted in Variety, Mar. 12, 1951.
“a slow invisible tide of socialism”: Garry Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), p. 283.
he floated the idea: “Insurance executives loved it when he told them social security could be voluntary.” Ibid.
“It was the GE managers”: Dana Andrews, quoted in Hollywood Remembers, Martin Kent, Ray Loynd, and David Robb, “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan” (unpublished manuscript provided to the author), p. 59.
“I was drumbeating”: “I was, am, and always will be an arch conservative.” Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater,” pp. 15–16.
“intelligent, honest and smacked”: RR, handwritten letter to Samuel Harrod II, c. summer 1952, Eureka College archives.
“a hand-picked errand boy”: Ibid.
“Pink right down to her underwear”: Rick Perlstein, Nixonland (New York: Scribner, 2008), p. 34.
135 GE plants: “Hey, Ronnie—Did the Guy Get the Girl?” TV Guide, Nov. 22, 1958.
“We drove him”: Edward Langley, quoted in Cannon, Reagan, p. 93.
“I had television work down”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 19, 1979, p. 5.
low-budget “jingoistic potboiler”: Halliwell’s Film Guide, 1986 ed., p. 589; AE, p. 589.
TWENTY: AN “APPRENTICESHIP FOR PUBLIC LIFE”
A litany of grievances: RR, speech, “Encroaching Control,” Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, Mar. 30, 1961, Hoover Institution Archives, pp. 4–11.
“Social Security is coming”: RR, interview with Lou Cannon, Oct. 26, 1968, LCA, p. 5.
“He had them in the palm”: Paul Wassmansdorf, interview with Lou Cannon, Jan. 30, 1988, LCA, p. 7.
“Those people just loved him”: William Frye, quoted in Bob Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy (New York: Warner Bros., 2004), pp. 279–80.
It was a nonstarter: “I didn’t want to be mayor.” MI, Jan. 30, 1987, p. 68.
Not to be outdone: Robert Tuttle, interview with author, Oct. 17, 2015.
“I did not want to leave”: MI, June 27, 1989, p. 256.
“Someday, I’m going to vote”: Bob Cummings quoted in AAL, p. 96; MI, Nov. 4, 1987, p. 155.
“You know, you really should”: Robert Stack, quoted in MI, Nov. 4, 1987, p. 155.
He loved having Jack Benny: “Benny, for some reason, tabbed Reagan with the nickname ‘the governor.’ Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), p. 398.
“Never in my wildest dreams”: Ibid.
“everybody would look better”: “We have a letter from GE to Reagan saying that he should have this lighting system so that everybody would look better.” Norman Switzer, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 275.
as “electrical servants”: Jacob Weisberg, “The Road to Reagandom,” Slate, Jan. 8, 2016.
“We found ourselves with more”: Nancy Reagan, I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan (New York: Random House, 2000), p. 63.
Ronnie sent the company: Paul Wassmansdorf, interview with Lou Cannon, Jan. 30, 1988, LCA, p. 9.
“when you live better electrically”: Weisberg, “The Road to Reagandom.”
Ronnie was panicked: “I grew frightened every time I remembered that long night when Patti was born and didn’t want to take chances.” WTROM, p. 274.
Nancy was determined: “She was hoping and praying that her second child would be a boy.” Arlene Dahl, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 284.
“I have hardening of the arteries”: Nelle Reagan, quoted in Bonnie Angelo, First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents (New York: William Morrow, 2000), p. 329.
“I am a shut in”: Anne Edwards, The Reagans (New York: St. Martin’s, 2003), p. 370.
“a three-pack”: AAL, p. 93.
“worshipped at the altar”: Unidentified source, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 304.
“I was a little jealous”: Michael Reagan with Joe Hyams, On the Outside Looking In (New York: Zebra Books, 1988), p. 74.
a “sullen” child: Betsy Bloomingdale, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 307.
“a lifelong roller coaster”: Michael Reagan, On the Outside Looking In, p. 103.
“couldn’t seem to do”: Ibid., p. 64.
“Although GE kept me”: AAL, p. 131.
“so everybody’s mind”: Jack Dales, interview with Mitch Tuchman, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 2, 1981, p. 36.
Ronnie was convinced that serving: “Convinced as I was that my previous service had hurt careerwise.” WTROM, p. 276.
“He has no ownership interest”: “Members are being told that Ronald Reagan, president of the Guild, produces and has an ownership interest in the television series, General Electric Theater.” Screen Actor, December 1959, SAG Archives.
To hasten things along: “Between soup and salad I laid out exactly just what the guild would settle for.” WTROM, p. 282; “It was Ron’s judgment and mine that we should take the deal.” Jack Dales, quoted in Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29, 1980.
“thousands and thousands”: Bob Hope, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” p. 20.
“eighty million times”: “They can take Johnny Weissmuller and show Tarzan 80 million times and give him nothing.” Mickey Rooney, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” p. 29.
“sold down the river”: Bob Hope, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” p. 19.
“crime showing our pictures”: Mickey Rooney, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ro
nald Reagan,” p. 28.
“I plan to change”: RR, resignation letter to Screen Actors Guild, July 3, 1960, SAG Archives.
“the unwashed public”: AE, p. 461.
“the American dangers”: “A series of hard-nosed happenings began to change my whole view on the American dangers.” WTROM, p. 142.
“a customer relations problem”: David W. Burke, letter to twelve regional GE vice presidents, Sept. 5, 1960, p. 1.
“unfairly competitive with private business”: Ibid.
They wanted him muzzled: “It was made pretty plain that I was to be fired.” WTROM, pp. 268–69.
“I am never going to have”: Earl B. Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater, 1954–1955,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Apr. 27, 1982, p. 23.
“delete all references to TVA”: David W. Burke, letter to twelve regional GE vice presidents, p. 1.
“lambasting venal big business”: Ibid., p. 2.
“On future speaking engagements”: Ibid., p. 3.
“The biggest problem we had”: Dunckel, interview, “Ronald Reagan and the General Electric Theater,” p. 26.
“had one of the most recognized”: Timothy Raphael, The President Electric (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009); Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge, p. 397.
“postgraduate education”: Thomas W. Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 38.
Ronald Reagan had been courted: “He received a call from Joseph Kennedy.” Ibid., p. 158.
“the foot in the door”: KK/NR, p. 114.
“less than honest”: RR, handwritten letter to Samuel Harrod II, c. 1949, Eureka College archives.
“I think you may be wrong”: AAL, p. 133.
“He wasn’t the villain”: Ibid.
“a frightening call to arms”: RR, letter to Richard Nixon, July 15, 1960, on file at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library; Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 315.
“the difference between creeping socialism”: Bob Gaston, quoted in Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), pp. 165–66.
“a pleasant young man”: “Opinion: Too Many People,” Time, Apr. 21, 1961.
“outrageous that he went over”: Olivia de Havilland, interview with author, Oct. 14, 2015.
the “rich Republicans”: Dana Andrews, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” p. 59.
Kennedy’s approval rating: Gallup poll cited in Richard Reeves, “Saved by the Cold War,” New York Times, Apr. 25, 2009.
lead to social “slavery”: RR, address at Huntington Memorial Hospital, Pasadena, CA, Jan. 4, 1962, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 320.
“infiltrating all phases”: RR, speech, quoted in Senator Frank Church, letter to J. Edgar Hoover, Oct. 26, 1961, Seth Rosenfelt, Subversives (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), p. 293.
“a complete slave of MCA”: Leonard Posner, quoted in Dan E. Moldea, Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob (New York: Viking, 1986), p. 160.
“My memory would be”: RR, testimony, Justice Dept., Feb. 5, 1962 transcript; Moldea, Dark Victory, p. 173; “New Info on Reagan, MCA Waiver Probe,” Variety, Apr. 18, 1984, p. 35.
“selective amnesia,” a strategy: Morris, Dutch, p. 321.
“likely that Reagan”: Justice Dept., memo, Mar. 7, 1962, quoted in Moldea, Dark Victory, p. 203.
“an orthodox and patriotic”: Lou Cannon, Reagan (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), p. 97.
for Loyd Wright: Perlstein, Before the Storm, p. 166.
“a right-wing zealot”: Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan, p. 163.
“was deeply and justifiably disturbed”: Paul Wassmansdorf, letter to Garry Wills, Sept. 21, 1987, p. 1.
“The time had come”: Paul Wassmansdorf, interview, Jan. 30, 1988, LCA.
“would be sales pitches”: MI, May 30, 1987, p. 120.
“the new 1963 coffee pot”: WTROM, p. 273.
to “peddle toasters”: AAL, p. 137.
Someone high-placed: Maureen Reagan, First Father/First Daughter (New York: Little, Brown, 1989), p. 110; MI, Mar. 29, 1988, p. 183.
“Like any actor”: RR, quoted in Sunset, Oct. 1961.
“You told me to wait”: MI, Mar. 24, 1987, p. 75.
“I felt that I had”: Ibid.; Morris, Dutch, p. 323.
TWENTY-ONE: THE FRIENDS OF RONALD REAGAN
“We didn’t have anybody”: Lou Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), p. 72.
It cast a pall: “It was a very, very tough time.” Angie Dickinson, quoted in Bob Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy (New York: Warner Bros., 2004), p. 322.
“he hated doing”: Ibid.
“film noir masterpiece”: Paul Brenner, “All Movie Guide,” review of The Killers, New York, July 7, 1964.
“It kept him in”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 22.
“I sold him a Model A Ford”: Holmes Tuttle, interview, LCA, Dec. 17, 1987, p. 1.
who “hated Roosevelt”: Robert Tuttle, interview with author, Oct. 3, 2014.
debonair “an oracle”: Betsy Bloomingdale, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 326.
“a tremendous underdog”: Jeffrey Bell, interview with author, Dec. 19, 2013.
“I remind you, that extremism”: Barry Goldwater, Republican Convention acceptance speech, San Francisco, July 17, 1964. Washington Post, online, washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.
“lob one into the men’s room”: Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 133.
he called on the administration: Niall Ferguson, Kissinger: 1923–1968, The Idealist (New York: Penguin Press, 2015), p. 598.
“abrasive Götterdämmerung approach”: Thomas C. Reed, The Reagan Enigma, (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2014), p. 65.
“You’re going to hold”: Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 325.
“not Wall Street”: Henry Salvatori, interview, Jan. 22, 1988, LCA.
(Henry Salvatori put up seed): “There was [sic] about ten of us and we’d all put up a couple of thousand dollars.” Ibid.
“stand athwart history”: William F. Buckley, “Publisher’s Statement,” National Review, Nov. 19, 1955.
considered “a fiasco”: “Our convention in San Francisco was a fiasco.” Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse, p. 72.
“was more important than all”: AAL, p. 139.
He’d make the president’s plan: “The President tells us he is now going to start building public housing units in the thousands.” From “A Time for Choosing,” Oct. 27, 1964, transcript, RRPL.
“It was the best speech”: Henry Salvatori interview, Jan. 22, 1988, LCA.
Holmes Tuttle recalled: Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 332; “After the speech we were swamped with requests from people who said these are the things Goldwater’s been missing.” Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse, p. 72.
“His philosophy was sound”: Henry Salvatori to Doris Klein, Associated Press, quoted in Bill Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 158.
“We’ve got to get that speech”: NR/MT, p. 130.
“it had always gotten”: AAL, p. 141.
“I remember my father molding”: Patti Davis, The Way I See It (New York: Putnam, 1992), p. 97.
“The delegation was at”: “Evolution of the Kitchen Cabinet, 1965–1973,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Mar. 16, 1988, p. 114.
“We were defeated”: Henry Salvatori, interview, Jan. 22, 1988, LCA.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I think”: “Reagan’s Inner Circle of Self-Made Men,” New York Times, May 31, 1980.
“Reagan is the man”: Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse, p. 72
.
“might be the only Republican”: AAL, p. 145.
“I told him I knew it”: Holmes Tuttle, interview, Dec. 17, 1987, LCA, p. 5; Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse, p. 72.
“I knew those people were going”: NR, quoted in Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy, p. 334.
“a real right-winger”: Bill Roberts, quoted in Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 135.
“I don’t think so”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“it was unfair to label”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 153.
“a person of great compassion”: William Roberts, interview, “Professional Campaign Management and the Candidate, 1960–1966,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1979, p. 15.
“But he doesn’t have a grasp”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
Nancy’s father, Loyal Davis: “He said I would be crazy to run for office.” AAL, p. 145.
“I kept saying no”: Ibid., p. 146.
“They kept insisting”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 19, 1979, p.?
“I’ll make the decision”: Ibid.
“he had done his homework”: Leo E. Litwak, “The Ronald Reagan Story; Or, Tom Sawyer Enters Politics,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1964.
“They’re right,” he told Nancy: “About a month before December 31, I knew that I was going to say yes.” RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 5.
TWENTY-TWO: THE CITIZEN POLITICIAN
“Wait a minute!”: MI, Nov. 4, 1987, p. 156; Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 340.
campaign’s “sawdust trail”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 19, 1979, p. 8.
“anarchy, with attempts to destroy”: “Reagan Demands Inquiry,” New York Times, May 14, 1966.
“Orgies . . . so vile”: Tom Wicker, “Reagan Shuns Image of Goldwater in Coast Race,” New York Times, June 8, 1966.
American troops “are being denied”: Ibid.; Rick Perlstein, Nixonland (New York: Scribner, 2008), p. 91.
He opposed as unconstitutional: David S. Broder, “Reagan Victory Aids G.O.P. Right,” New York Times, July 9, 1966.
“Our city streets”: Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 144.