by Bob Spitz
From the beginning: “It was a total Reagan staged kickoff.” Tom Reed, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
“tanned and meticulously groomed”: Peter Bart, “Reagan Enters Gubernatorial Race in California,” New York Times, Jan. 5, 1966, p. 21.
“He was overanswering”: Stanley Plog, “More Than Just an Actor: The Early Campaigns of Ronald Reagan,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 5, 1981, p. 6.
“On matters on which”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 139.
“He could read an audience”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“His short little one-liners”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“Joe Dokes running”: Bill Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 137.
“[His] solutions to most problems”: Stuart Spencer, interview, Jan. 6, 1988, LCA.
“the right-wing conservatives”: San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 5, 1966.
“some of it occasionally clean”: “[He] had a remarkable ability to make a pun out of almost anything.” Paul Haerle, quoted in “Ronald Reagan and Republican Party Politics, 1965–1965,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1982, p. 5.
Plus, he had no respect: Georges Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
I was not sober”: Lyn Nofziger, Nofziger (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1991), p. 33.
“a glamorous curiosity”: William French Smith, quoted in “Evolution of the Kitchen Cabinet, 1965–1973,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Mar. 16, 1988, p. 10.
“political switch-hitter”: “Reagan and G.O.P. Rival Clash: Question Each Other’s Integrity,” Lawrence E. Davies, New York Times, Dec.6,/1965, p. 26.
Reagan had never gotten: Lyn Nofziger, MCI, Mar.6/2003, pp. 4–5
“What are you going to do”: “We had not briefed him properly.” Ibid., p. 6.
“complete and utter lack”: “California: New Role,” Time, Jan. 14, 1966.
“it irritated Reagan”: Lyn Nofziger, interview, MCPA, Mar. 6, 2003, p. 6.
Goldwater “fire-breathers”: Tom Reed, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
It was actually conceived: “That was done with our approval, with us involved in the creation of the Eleventh Commandment.” William Roberts, interview, “Professional Campaign Management and the Candidate, 1960–1966,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1979, p. 20; “We came up with this mainly to keep the other candidates from attacking Reagan for being ignorant.” Lyn Nofziger, interview, MCPA, Mar. 6, 2003, p. 4.
“I will have no word”: “California: New Role,” Time.
“How are Negro Republicans”: Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan, p. 148.
“I resent the implication”: “Reagan’s Exit Stirs Negro G.O.P. Parley,” New York Times, Mar. 7, 1966, p. 16.
tried shushing him: “He’s cussing under his breath, and I’m saying, ‘Shut up!’” Lyn Nofziger, interview, MCPA, p. 8; “He was walking off the stage throwing profanities around at Christopher. ‘That son of a bitch.’” Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014; Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan, p. 149.
“If it’s a good line”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“If I’m asking them”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 19, 1979, p. 21.
“They were scared to death”: Lyn Nofziger, interview, MCPA, p. 6; “Many reporters found him monumentally ignorant of state issues.” Lou Cannon, Reagan (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), p. 114.
a “moral crusade”: Wicker, “Reagan Shuns Image of Goldwater.”
“small minority of beatniks”: Wallace Turner, “Reagan Demands Berkeley Inquiry,” New York Times, April 14, 1966.
“And if that means kicking”: Wicker, “Reagan Shuns Image of Goldwater.”
“Campus unrest isn’t even”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
By late spring, the national press: “Straw polls during the fall, winter and spring have given Mr. Reagan the lead.” Lawrence E. Davies, “Reagan Endorsed by G.O.P. Assembly,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 1966; San Francisco Chronicle, May 24, 1966.
“Ronald Reagan has an excellent chance”: Wicker, “Reagan Shuns Image of Goldwater.”
He flew to Eureka College: Perlstein, Nixonland, p. 91.
“Did he jointly sponsor protest”: Drew Pearson, “Fear Reagan May Veer Left Again,” Nevada Daily Mail, Oct. 27, 1966.
Ronald Reagan had 1,385,550 votes: “California: Up from Death Valley,” Time, June 17, 1966.
“against all counsels”: “California Primaries,” New York Times, June 9, 1996.
“‘Bring him on’”: Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan, p. 113.
“A sweet, nice, all-around”: Anthony Beilenson, interview with author, Aug. 28, 2014.
“not only a good man”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“There was no ideological divide”: Kirk West, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“reasonable, rational and realistic”: Robert Reinhold, Obituary of Edmund G. Brown, New York Times, Feb. 18, 1996.
“We respected him”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“probably have Pat Brown”: Kirk West, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
a “political giant”: Lou Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), p. 79.
“a very difficult candidate”: Tom Reed, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
“front man” who “collaborated”: State Democratic chairman Robert L. Coate, “Ronald Reagan, Extremist Collaborator—An Expose,” Democratic State Central Committee of California typescript in author’s possession, Aug. 11, 1966, p. 1.
“I’m not going to condemn”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, p. 16; Bill Roberts, interview, undated, LCA, pp. 1–2.
“he was a citizen politician”: Roberts interview, “Professional Campaign Management,” p. 14.
“Nowhere in the state constitution”: “Reagan Handles His Role as a Political Amateur Like an Old Pro,” Warren Weaver Jr., New York Times, Oct. 2, 1966, p. 54.
“He was running against Reagan”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“Our research showed us”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“Our battle cry”: Roberts, interview, “Professional Campaign Management,” p. 21.
“The minute it became obvious”: William French Smith, “Evolution of the Kitchen Cabinet,” p. 12; “We brought them right into the campaign.” RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 14.
“The Democrats did everything wrong”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 15.
“I couldn’t believe the stupidity”: Ibid., p. 24.
“Ronald Reagan is your grandfather’s”: Tom Reed, The Reagan Enigma: 1964–1980 (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2014), p. 38.
“It was amateur hour”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014. OK? “The first batch we got out of them was crap!” Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“I drew the short straw”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
was “running scared”: Lawrence E. Davies, “Reagan Plays It Like a Pro,” New York Times, Aug. 14, 1966.
His popularity continued to increase: “On the basis of the latest opinion surveys, Mr. Reagan appeared to have a commanding lead.” Gladwyn Hill, “Brown Pressing to Catch Reagan,” New York Times, Nov. 6, 1966.
“We figured by the spring”: Stuart Spencer, interview, Jan. 6, 1988, LCA.
TWENTY-THREE: “PRAIRIE FIRE”
“We must, I think, take Reaganism”: James Q. Wilson, “A Guide to Reagan Country,” Commentary, May 1967.
“existed as a cowtown”: Greg Lucas, interview with author, California State Librarian, Mar. 24, 2015.
“It was a very sleepy”: Ken Hall, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“We were in shock”: Burnett Miller, interview with author, Feb. 26, 2015; “We were underimpressed; we didn’t take him seriously.” Anthony Beilenson, interview with author, Aug. 28, 2014.
“Ronald Reagan, on the other”: Steven Avella, interview with author, Apr. 17, 2015.
“Here we are—now what”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014; “What are we going to do if we win?” George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“I guess I thought more”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Jan. 19, 1979, pp. 29, 34.
“We were not only amateurs”: Lyn Nofziger, interview, undated, LCA; Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 184.
“specifically wanted people”: George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“the fair-haired boy”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“He was a charming”: Sandy Quinn, interview with author, Oct. 30, 2014.
“the most dreary, dismal”: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 33.
“a wooden firetrap”: “Nancy described it to me as a wooden firetrap.” Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 17, 2014; Ken Hall, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
and “a tinderbox”: “Its wooden frame eaten through by dry rot.” NR/MT, p. 135.
“It backs up”: KK/NR, p. 138.
“Those damn trucks!”: RR, quoted in Kathy Randall Davis, But What’s He REALLY Like? (Menlo Park, CA: Pacific Coast Publishing, 1970), p. 69.
“Gentlemen,” Champion said: Ken Hall, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
a shortfall that might run: “A prospective state budget the Governor-elect’s aides told him might be as much as $700 million out of balance.” Gladwyn Hill, “Reagan Starts Down a Long Road,” New York Times, Dec. 4, 1966.
“I didn’t realize it would be”: RR, quoted in Bill Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 165.
“Here I was, the big conservative”: RR, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 34.
“Any major business can tighten”: RR, quoted in “Reagan Appears on Television,” New York Times, Jan. 17, 1967.
“Our state has been looted”: Lawrence E. Davies, “Reagan Attacks California Debt; Charges Brown ‘Drained’ State,” New York Times, Jan. 31, 1967.
“We can close hospitals”: “Sounds good to me!” he said. RR, quoted in Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“The whole system came unglued”: Ken Hall, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“The roof fell in”: “We had no time to warn legislators.” RR, interview, Oct. 26, 1968, LCA, p. 3.
the ax fell: “I had to fire sixteen women on Christmas Eve. We had a mandate coming in: ten percent cuts.” George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“took his big stick”: Carolyn Anspacher, “Reagan Blasts Kerr Over UC Freeze,” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 18, 1967.
“We would like to welcome”: Lee Fremstad, “Harmony of UC Regents, Reagan Ends,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 21, 1967.
He was trimming: William Trombley, “Governor and Academia Never Came to Terms,” in a special supplement entitled “Reagan’s Quixotic Reign, 1967–1977,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 29, 1974.
Students at Berkeley planned: Anspacher, “Reagan Blasts Kerr.”
“He was having horrific fights”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
The skirmish cost UC president: Lee Fremstad, “UC President Kerr Is Fired by Regents,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 21, 1967; “Dismissal Angers Students at UC,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 21, 1967.
Protesters on the Berkeley campus: “Savio, Four Others Are Found Guilty,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 21, 1967.
“to harass students, faculty”: Seth Rosenfeld, “Secret FBI Files Reveal Covert Activities at UC,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 2002.
“I want to come talk to you”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014; Reed, The Reagan Enigma, p. 57.
Reagan knew it was premature: He told Tom Reed, “I don’t want to hear about this all day long, but if you want to go do it, it’s fine.” Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“Those guys talk too much”: “Their allegiances run in a lot of different directions.” Reed, The Reagan Enigma, p. 58.
“I was opposed to it”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.
“This is not being done right”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“Those first months were replete”: Ken Hall, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
Reagan’s relationship with: “There were a few months there in which, oh, yes, I was very uncomfortable.” RR interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 43.
“He wasn’t interested”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 193.
“He convinced Reagan”: George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
There were several Republican: “Bob Monagan, Jack Veneman, Hugh Flournoy, and Bill Bagley were all lovely guys I got along with.” Anthony Beilenson interview, Aug.28, 2014.
“Every piece of legislation”: Paul Haerle, interview with author, July 16, 2014.
He issued official press releases: Author interview with Paul Haerle, July 26, 2014.
“I tried to run everything”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 239.
“I started setting up lunches”: William Clark, interview, July 3, 1981, LCA, p. 9.
“should be played by ear”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 187.
“Finally,” he recalled: RR, interview, “On Becoming Governor,” p. 41.
“The word ‘abortion’”: Anthony Beilenson, interview with author, Aug. 28, 2014.
“archaic, barbarous and hypocritical”: Arguments before the California Judiciary Committee, Apr. 28, 1967; Anthony C. Beilenson, Looking Back: A Memoir (Privately printed, 2012), p. 94.
George Danielson, a state assemblyman: Ibid.
“I had never given”: MI, Mar. 24, 1987, p. 81.
“This is not in my mind”: “I . . . I just can’t give you a decision.” Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 352.
“He was really torn”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.
Stu Spencer was to recall: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“very rarely has rape”: MI, Mar. 24, 1987, p. 81.
“I cannot justify morally”: RR, quoted in Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan, p. 189.
“It just finally came”: MI, Mar. 24, 1987, p. 81.
“he never would have signed”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 213.
“in all the years”: Beilenson, Looking Back, p. 116.
“a stage set”: Joan Didion, “Pretty Nancy,” Saturday Evening Post, June 1, 1968.
“There was always a distance”: Davis, But What’s He REALLY Like?, p. 36.
more than two martinis: “He had a martini ‘up.’ I circulated back twenty minutes later and the martini glass was empty. The Governor has a second martini, which he drains. He eyed mine and said, ‘Give it to me,’ and this was before dinner.” George Steffes, interviews with author, July 17, 2014, and Nov. 22, 2016.
“had total trust in Phil”: William Clark, interview, July 3, 1981, LCA, p. 4.
“my strong right arm”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 239; “RR thought Phil was the greatest thing since sliced bread.” Tom Reed, interview, Nov. 24, 1971, LCA, p. 1.
said, “had presidentialitis”: Sandy Quinn, interview with author, Oct. 30, 2014.
“a self-promoting autoc
rat”: Reed, The Reagan Enigma, p. 101.
“cutting out and annihilating those”: Tom Reed, interview, May 27, 1981, LCA, p. 11.
“trying to ram things through”: Robert Monagan, interview, “Increasing Republican Influence in the State Assembly,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1981, p. 39; Reed, The Reagan Enigma, pp. 100–101.
“power–mad”. . . “clinically crazy”: Tom Reed, interview, Mar. 25, 1981, LCA, p. 13.
“So we figured out”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“It was evil to be homosexual”: Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014; “Homosexuality was considered to be a sin.” Paul Haerle, interview with author, July 16, 2014.
“fairly high paranoia”: Leland L. Nichols, interview with Donald B. Seney, California State University, State Government Oral History Program, Nov. 14, 1991, p. 340.
“a case of sickness and disease”: LBJ, quoted in “Johnson and the Jenkins Case,” Time, Nov. 6, 1964.
Quinn and Jack Kemp: “Jack was bisexual. We eventually knew about him.” Stuart Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“Clark and I were the ringleaders”: Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“We made the Keystone Cops”: Lyn Nofziger, Nofziger (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1991), p. 77.
“I don’t think there was anything”: “I think that was a dead end,” Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“It was all circumstantial”: William Clark, interview, July 3, 1981, LCA, p. 5.
“It was decided that”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014; “We decided to get on different flights because we didn’t want to all go down there together.” Paul Haerle, interview with author, July 16, 2014.
“Golly, are you quitting”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, p. 244.
Bill Clark recalled: Clark interview, memo on Western Union stationery, LCA, undated except for the notation “11/6.”
“This is not a Monday problem”: Holmes Tuttle, quoted in Tom Reed, interview with author, Oct. 11, 2014.
“She saw the potential vulnerability”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.
“Phil,” Tuttle said: Robert Tuttle, interview with author, Oct. 3, 2014.