Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  Reagan came close to creating yet another controversy when it seemed he was advocating sending in U.S. troops to quell the uprising in Iran, but his biggest problem was that he was ignoring Iowa and interest in him was waning.

  The age issue had grown to alarming proportions, but no one in the campaign seemed to know what to do. According to a Harris survey, 61 percent of voters, when told that Reagan would be seventy only two weeks after the 1981 inaugural, said that was too old. Polling showed it to be an even bigger issue among older voters.3 Most oldsters felt that if they needed a nap or two a day and their bones creaked, then so too must Reagan's, and that meant he wouldn't be able to withstand the physical pressures of the presidency.

  Yet Reagan had been in St. Petersburg, Florida, speaking to senior citizens, and as the Washington Star reported, “the contrast between his apparent vigor and that of those who sat on the benches … was striking.”4 Reagan had to deny that he took afternoon naps. For a man his age, his agility was impressive. He swung an ax, mounted and dismounted a horse like a teenager, pulled down trees. He'd played sports his whole life, though he had never learned to like tennis and found jogging faddish and unmanly.

  After his straw poll wins, George Bush was the hot property, even though he was under 5 percent in most national polls. His speaking style had improved greatly and he had hit upon a theme that brought GOP crowds to their feet: “I am sick and tired of apologizing for the United States!”5 The questions about his unusual résumé had faded somewhat; he did still need to talk about his work at the CIA, but in defending the institution he pleased Republicans. Bush's organization on the ground in Iowa was excellent, and he had assembled a Washington staff of talented, mostly moderate political operatives.

  His senior advisers were masters at media schmoozing, led by campaign manager Jim Baker and political director Dave Keene. Both had heavy Washington experience and knew reporters needed to be kept happy and well fed with tidbits, quotes, and returned phone calls. Neither was a boozer, but they socialized with reporters over breakfast and lunch. Both were enthusiastic hunters and fishermen and would, when possible, use this inducement on like-minded journalists. They were two GOP operatives who did not routinely denounce the media, and thus were rewarded with good coverage. Bush's temperamental press secretary, Pete Teeley, could also network when the mood so moved him.

  IN JUST A FEW years, the political “industry” had evolved. Power cannot be destroyed—only shifted—and the power in Washington had for a while been moving toward the media and away from the state party leaders; now it was also moving from elected GOP officials to the GOP operatives. In the old days, consultants and staff were seen but rarely heard. The “star” was always the candidate himself. FDR wanted staff “with a passion for anonymity.” This began to change with Watergate. Political operatives and consultants were now becoming media stars.

  A symbiotic relationship developed in Washington as the elected officials came and went, but the permanent classes of reporters and consultants stayed. This permanent class was what truly mattered in Washington. While consultants would publicly attack candidates they were working against, they would almost never attack one another, even across party lines. Bipartisan work on legislation, which many consultants also handled, was common, and it was not unusual to see prominent Democratic and Republican consultants dining cozily together at the Palm or the Monocle. The consultant you were opposing today could be your ally—even paymaster—tomorrow.

  Lyndon Johnson, as perceptive a politician as ever lived, saw what was happening. He told David Halberstam, as related in The Powers That Be, “You guys. All you guys in the media. All of politics has changed because of you. You've broken all the machines and the ties between us … and the city machines. You've given us a new kind of people.… They're your creations, your puppets.”6

  While many consultants regarded candidates as little more than a means to gain exposure and make money, most levelheaded politicians understood this dynamic and were equally pragmatic. They routinely turned over staff. As the James Carville–based character in the novel Primary Colors told another political operative, “That's what these guys do. They love you, they stop lovin' you.” Everybody used everybody, and as long as one understood this, one could prosper. It was symbiosis: the two organisms fed off each other.

  IN 1980, IOWA was smack dab in the middle of America in every measurable manner. Situated between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, it was almost at the very middle of the continental United States. It had the twenty-sixth-largest population, with just under three million people; it was the twenty-fifth state in area; it had the twenty-first-largest median family income.7

  Iowans were moderately conservative in their politics and their outlook. The state—nicknamed “Hawkeye” for an Indian scout from the classic James Fenimore Cooper novel The Last of the Mohicans— was generally Republican but not aggressively conservative. Iowa usually went Republican in presidential elections, but a streak of prairie populism often helped Democrats at the state and local levels. It was a common political dichotomy in the Midwest.

  Agriculture dominated Iowa's economy: 12 percent of its citizens lived on farms and another 17 percent worked in farm-related manufacturing. Nationwide, the number of farmers had dwindled to about two million from almost seven million in the 1930s.8 Iowa was a state of small towns; only seven cities exceeded fifty thousand people, and the largest city, Des Moines, had fewer than 200,000 people. Eighty percent of Iowa's residents had been born in the state, remarkable for a nation of transients.9

  The image of Iowans depicted in The Music Man wasn't far from the truth.10(Favoring Reagan was “Mr. Music Man” himself, Meredith Willson, the famous musical writer and “Ioway” native. Willson thought the world of Reagan, even offering to lend his friend the music to “Seventy-Six Trombones” for his campaign.)11 Toward the end of the 1970s the Des Moines Register, which dominated politics in the state, took a revealing survey of Iowa's citizens, asking them to rate thirty-three institutions in terms of trust. God came in first at 91 percent, as might be expected, but right behind was the Iowa State Police at 84 percent. Bringing up the rear were labor unions and farm organizations. More than 50 percent of Iowans said “I love you” to somebody at least once a day. A majority said they would rather live a hundred years in the past than a hundred years in the future. They went to the State Fair and when they did, by a margin of three to one, they preferred looking at the farm equipment and agriculture displays to going on rides on the midway. By the same margin they supported spanking in the schools, and while two-thirds believed in Heaven and thought they were headed in that direction, one-third said they knew someone who was going to Hell. The state ranked first in the nation in literacy, with 99.5 percent of everyone over the age of fifteen able to both read and write. The vast majority said their state was the best place to live and they had no desire to live anywhere else. A saying in Iowa, sometimes appearing on bumper stickers, proudly proclaimed, “Welcome to Iowa. Please set your clock back to the 1950s.”

  Political journalists from the East descended upon Iowa like a plague of Old Testament locusts. Some seven hundred reporters came to the state to cover its caucuses, the first major test of the 1980 campaign. Looking for colorful stories, they wrote romantically about Iowa's farmers as if they had just discovered a cure for cancer. The natives went along with bemusement, but were far more interested in the high school girls' basketball playoffs, which uniquely featured “six on six” rather than the “five on five” played everywhere else in the country. The media were shocked to learn that the bars in Iowa closed at 10 P.M.12

  The locals made sport of the eastern city slickers behind their backs. A journalist for a big newspaper lamented the expanse of empty land in January. When Steve Roberts, the state Republican chairman, politely told her that that was where the grain grew in the summer, she replied, “But why don't you have something there in the winter?” Another reporter called and demanded to know w
here the pigs and corn were and could they take a taxi to film it?13

  January 1980 was not a happy time for Iowa or Iowa's farmers. In addition to the national recession, acreage was falling in value for only the third time since the Great Depression, in some cases down by more than $500 per acre of land that had been fetching more than $4,000 per acre just a few years earlier. Just a year earlier, thousands of America's farmers driving hundreds of tractors had descended on Washington to protest government farm policies as part of the American Agriculture Movement. They jammed commuter roads into the capital and set up camp on the mall, where their farm equipment tore up the sod. The protest took place during one of the worst winter storms in recent history, and in an effort to stay warm the farmers tore up benches and burned them in campfires. More recently, President Carter had imposed yet another hardship on Iowa's weary farmers when he implemented a grain embargo on sales to the Soviet Union.

  The grain embargo was intended as punishment for the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union had installed a puppet government in Kabul. In December 1979, after an uprising against the new government arose in the countryside, the Soviets used this pretext to send three battalions into Afghanistan, with more on the way. It was the first time since World War II that Soviet troops had gone into territory that was not a part of the Eastern bloc for the purposes of keeping a pro-Kremlin government from falling.

  President Carter had warned Moscow not to invade Afghanistan, but the Soviets weren't listening. They had taken the measure of the man over three years and knew they could push him around. Within days, Soviet troop strength grew to more than fifty thousand men, and a full-scale invasion ensued. Carter seemed ill prepared to deal with the offensive other than to recall his ambassador to Moscow, Thomas Watson.

  The Carter administration made clear that it would not link Soviet behavior, including the invasion of other countries, to its precious SALT II treaty. “We are not going to penalize the Soviets by cutting off our nose,” said one White House official.14 Carter called Leonid Brezhnev on the hotline, but was coldly rebuffed. Carter demanded that the Soviets reduce the size of their embassy staff in Washington, which everybody knew was stuffed with KGB agents.

  Carter naïvely told his fellow Americans he was mystified that the Soviets would ever invade another country and further said his judgment of Moscow was undergoing a “dramatic change,” as was his “opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals were.” It was an extraordinary admission by the president of the United States.15 Columnists Jack Germond and Jules Witcover compared Carter's statement to Michigan governor George Romney's comment in 1967 that American generals in the Vietnam War had “brainwashed” him, a remark that had torpedoed his presidential campaign.16

  Ronald Reagan immediately issued a statement responding to Carter's naïveté, “congratulating the President on ‘belatedly’ making the discovery that the Russians are not to be trusted.”17 Afghan students in New Delhi protested the Soviet invasion of their homeland by taking over the Russian embassy and unfurled a banner that read, “We shall fight them here, we shall fight them there, we shall fight them anywhere.”18 It was Dr. Seuss Meets the Mujahedeen. Guerrilla operations formed very quickly. The Afghan people were not going to roll over and play dead for Moscow.

  The Carter administration rounded up a handful of Western allies to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics, due to be held in Moscow, which the Soviets were eagerly looking forward to as a public-relations bonanza. Alas for Carter, one by one, America's allies began to fall away as internal pressures and those of the International Olympic Committee forced them to weaken their resolve.

  INSIDE THE REAGAN ORGANIZATION, power struggles continued between John Sears and anybody who had not already left the campaign in frustration. Sears had surrounded himself with his friends Charlie Black and Jim Lake, two dependable allies who had worked with him on the 1976 campaign. But things were different this time. In the 1976 quest, Citizens for Reagan was a gloriously haphazard operation where people worked long hours for little pay because they were on an ideological quest led by their hero, Ronald Reagan. An insurgent campaign against an incumbent president can't be picky about who wants to come to work for it, and Sears did not have full control of the 1976 operations. Most notably, Reagan's successful efforts in the North Carolina and Texas primaries were entirely locally run affairs, and won exclusively by grassroots “True Believers,” not because of any substantial help from the national campaign.

  Sears could be a lot choosier about staffing the 1980 campaign, since Reagan went into the race as the front-runner. But the campaign manager had changed. The chain-smoking, heavy-drinking Sears of 1976 was accessible and garrulous with the staff and volunteers, and especially with the Reagans. The Sears of 1980 was inward-looking, inaccessible, and paralyzed with concerns about turf. He was walling himself off, just as his mentor, Richard Nixon, had done.

  Sears didn't want anything or anyone to screw up the 1980 campaign. His obsession led to infighting. Keene was the first to go, but this was easy for Sears, as old Reagan hand Mike Deaver agreed that he should go. Nofziger was next. Then Marty Anderson walked, furious that Sears had created a clandestine research operation in Washington when all campaign researchers were supposed to report to Anderson. These researchers were also being paid large amounts, with some getting as much as $10,000 for a single white paper at a time when the campaign was bleeding red ink. Anderson, ever the model of class and loyalty, did not speak out publicly against Reagan, saying only that he was scaling back his work to part-time. Nofziger also did not often comment publicly, but that did not stop him from raging privately against Sears to all who inquired. Rumors swirled around Washington and California that other departures were imminent, including Reagan's liaisons to the Jewish and black communities, John Erthein and Leo Taylor.

  There were fewer and fewer old familiar faces around Reagan, and he grew more and more pensive. Sears was laying the groundwork for his own undoing by making unnecessary enemies. Though few Reaganites had wanted Sears back, no one was yet directly challenging his authority. Still, he was acting as if they were. In addition to Black and Lake, Sears brought in another old ally, Darrell Trent, who had battled with the 1976 Reagan campaign staff over expenses. The poor man was in an impossible position, courtesy of Sears. Trent's job was to hold the line on spending, but he couldn't stop the free-spending Sears; he could only stop the rest of the staff and vendors.

  Now Deaver came into Sears's field of vision. In the power struggle of the previous August, when Nofziger fled, Deaver had sided with Sears, a clear indication of where Nancy Reagan stood in the choice between Nofziger and Sears. Mrs. Reagan liked the campaign manager and enjoyed talking politics with him over lunch. Sears was witty, erudite, cosmopolitan, and up on the latest gossip inside Washington. Nancy was less enamored with the cigar-chomping, plainspoken Nofziger.

  But on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, Sears asked Reagan for an immediate meeting to discuss Deaver, who had taken over the finance director position for which Nofziger had been so ill-suited. Deaver had been invited to the meeting but, arriving a few minutes early, was surprised to walk into the Reagans' home and find Sears, Black, Lake, Mrs. Reagan, and Governor Reagan huddling together. Mrs. Reagan asked Deaver to wait in their bedroom, saying, “They are not quite through yet.” After a few minutes of waiting, Deaver figured “what the hell” and left the bedroom. Walking back into the living room, he overheard Sears, Black, and Lake accusing him of bilking Reagan out of thousands of dollars. When they spotted Deaver, however, they would not look him in the eye.19

  Like Nofziger, Deaver realized too late that he had been set up. He was no more a fundraiser than Nofziger was. Sears made it clear to Reagan that it was a “him or me” proposition; either Deaver had to go or Sears would, along with Lake and Black. Reagan was furious at the ultimatum, but Mrs. Reagan indicated her position when she said, “Honey, it looks as if you've got to make a choice.” Recognizing that he'd
lost the power struggle, Deaver said, “No, Governor, you don't have to because I'm leaving!” He bolted out with Reagan and Nancy following him, arguing for some other accommodation. Deaver declined. Reagan stomped back into the room, red-faced, furious. He hated blackmail and ultimatums.20 Roaring at the three, he shouted, “You bastards! The biggest man here has just left the room!”21

  Lake later said, “It was the blackest day of my life. I hated that day. I hated being there.” He told Reagan he was siding with Sears for Reagan's own good.22 Deaver's dramatic exit was marred a bit because his wife, Carolyn, had dropped him off and he had no way to get home. He sheepishly knocked on the door to borrow the Reagans' station wagon.23

  The meeting with the others was over quickly and the Reagans showed little warmth toward the three as they departed. From then on, Sears was in Reagan's doghouse. Nancy Reagan later said, “I've never known Ronnie to carry a grudge, but after that day I think he resented John Sears.”24 Just a few more mistakes and Reagan would throw him to the wolves. Reagan's old friend and press aide Nancy Reynolds called the governor later to protest Deaver's departure and it was the first time that she remembered Reagan being ill-tempered with her.25

  Deaver was crushed. He'd been with Reagan since 1967. He and Hannaford had traveled with Reagan for years, making him a pile of money with the radio commentaries, the syndicated columns, and the speakers' circuit.