by Nancy Reagan
During this time, I made no public comment. I had learned long ago that sometimes the best response to a negative story is to keep your mouth shut. It wasn’t easy, but I knew that anything I said would only call more attention to the whole controversy and prolong it. At one point I allowed myself to give what I thought was a funny answer: “It’s managed to come through to me that Donald Regan doesn’t like me very much.” But when that only provoked another blast from Don, I resumed my silence. Donald Regan seemed to be working around the clock to promote his book, and he didn’t need any help from me.
Joan had been on vacation when the story broke, but as soon as her plane landed in San Francisco she was met by a crowd of reporters. She was unprepared for them, and she said more than she should have. When she called me I said, “The best thing you can do is to say nothing. Have your sister answer the phone and don’t take any calls. Let’s treat this like a doctor-patient relationship.”
At the time, I was upset that Joan had said anything. But looking back, I admire the way she handled herself. “I don’t make decisions for them,” she told Time magazine. “An astrologer just picks the best possible time to do something that someone else has already planned to do. It’s like being in the ocean: You should go with the waves, not against them.”
Exactly.
4
First Lady, Dragon Lady
BY 1988 I had learned the hard way that when it comes to press coverage of the first lady, anything is possible. And yet throughout my years in the White House I was continually astonished and hurt by what I read about myself in the papers. Even before Ronnie’s inauguration, for example, I read that I had asked the Carters to leave the White House early so I could get started on redecorating, and that I planned to tear down a wall in the Lincoln Bedroom. The Lincoln Bedroom!
What surprised me the most was that people actually believed these reports. But then, how could they know? I also wondered how they could reconcile these often contradictory accounts. For example, in October 1988, three months before Ronnie and I moved out of the White House, two very different stories appeared in the press. One said that I couldn’t wait to leave the White House, and had already shipped everything back to California. The other said, “It’s curtain time, and to put it simply, Nancy Reagan does not want to get off the stage.” I had to laugh, and yet I knew that some people would find a way to believe both views of me.
No matter what I said or did, the stories never stopped. Some of them were amusing, others were maddening, and a few are still deeply offensive. Over eight years, I never stopped being hurt, although eventually I stopped being very surprised.
But it was always disheartening to see how influential these articles could be. Three or four years into Ronnie’s first term, I was having lunch one day with Robert Strauss, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who had become a close friend. Bob is one of the more candid men in Washington, and just before dessert, he leaned over the table and said, “When you first came to town, Nancy, I didn’t like you at all. But after I got to know you, I changed my mind and said, ‘She’s some broad!’ ”
“Bob,” I replied, “based on the press reports I read then, I wouldn’t have liked me either.”
I said earlier that nothing prepares you for the job of first lady. The experience of having not only your public appearances but your private life scrutinized and examined by the entire country, by the entire world, is almost too intense to describe. Although I lived with it for eight years, I still have trouble believing it.
For me, the biggest shock of all was that even the most intimate details of our medical treatment became a matter of public discussion. I agree that the public has a right to know in some detail about the president’s health, especially after several previous presidents have concealed important information. But when that right to know clashes with the president’s right to some privacy and dignity, the situation calls for discretion—and some limits.
As far as I’m concerned, those limits are violated when the news media show diagrams of the president’s insides, or find it necessary to inform the country how many times he urinated during his first day in the hospital. I didn’t like it any better, by the way, when diagrams of my 1987 breast cancer surgery were shown on television. Was that really necessary?
In the summer of 1985, two days after Ronnie was operated on for cancer of the colon, I turned on the television in his hospital room so we could see the evening news. And there was a doctor pointing to a diagram of Ronnie’s bowel and intestines. How unprofessional, I thought. This man isn’t connected with the case, and he’s never even met the patient.
But soon it got worse—much worse. After summing up his diagnosis, the doctor said, “I give him four or five years.”
I didn’t dare look at Ronnie.
Didn’t it occur to anyone that we might be watching? Or our children? Or our friends?
We’ve reached the point where there is so much interest in the president as a symbol and a celebrity that people sometimes forget he’s also a human being.
During Ronnie’s first term, I was portrayed as caring only about shopping, beautiful clothes, and going to lunch with my fancy Hollywood friends. During his second term I was described as a power-hungry political manipulator, a vindictive dragon lady who controlled the actions and appointments of the executive branch.
As my son, Ron, said, “Yeah, Mom, that’s you all right!”
Part of the problem is that while the president’s job is clearly defined, nobody really knows exactly what the first lady is supposed to do. The Constitution doesn’t mention the president’s wife, and she has no official duties. As a result, each incoming first lady has had to define the job for herself.
Once upon a time, the president’s wife was seen and not heard. But there have always been exceptions, and ever since Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady has become not only more visible but more active as well.
I realized early on that I would be the object of enormous attention no matter what I did. And soon after I moved to Washington, I began to try to find ways to focus some of that attention on the problem of drug abuse among young people. Here, too, I was remembering something Helen Thomas had told me during our talk on the campaign plane. “If your husband is elected,” she said, “you will have a platform that is given to very few people. You should think about what you want to do with it. You’ll never be given this kind of opportunity again.”
That was one part of the job, and now that I’m back in Los Angeles, I’m continuing to work on the drug problem through the Nancy Reagan Foundation.
Then there’s the ceremonial role of the first lady. I soon found that this in itself is practically a full-time occupation. In eight years, I hosted close to a hundred Christmas parties—not to mention dozens of official dinners, lunches, meetings with wives of foreign dignitaries, receptions, arrival ceremonies, awards, speaking engagements, political dinners, fund-raisers, and dozens of trips.
Every first lady makes her own choices, and mine was to become very involved in planning White House events, right down to the details: the menu, table settings, flowers, and entertainment. I always loved doing this, but it took an enormous amount of time.
Then there were the mostly invisible parts of the first lady’s job: meeting with my staff, working with my press secretary, answering the mail, signing autographs, and meeting with some of the many people who, for a variety of good reasons, ask for “just five minutes of your time.” I never worked harder in my life—and I liked doing most of it. Mostly, I liked being useful—to Ronnie, to individual people, and to the country, in helping address the drug problem.
Through it all, I didn’t want to neglect my friends. I knew how intimidating and isolating the White House could be, and how easy it could be for us to lose touch with people, so right from the start I made it a practice to stay in touch with our friends back in California. Thank heaven for the telephone, which is really the only way you can do it. Th
at’s one media image of me that I can’t object to. When they come to bury me, I’ll have a receiver in one hand and my personal phone book in the other.
One thing that surprised us was how difficult it became for our friends in Washington to invite us to dinner. Ronnie and I looked forward to these invitations as a relief from formality, and from our point of view, these evenings were simple. All we had to do was get dressed and walk out to the car. It wasn’t until we returned to California in 1989 that I began to discover just how complicated these events were for our hosts.
I hadn’t known, for example, that if you invite the president to dinner, the Secret Service shows up at your house two weeks in advance to install extra telephone lines, or that they review your seating plan to ensure that the president cannot be seen from any of the windows, or that all wine and liquor must be poured from new, sealed bottles which must be opened under the sharp eyes of the Secret Service. And it must be an amazing experience to have your home suddenly transformed into the command post of the free world. I’m not so sure I would ever have asked us to dinner!
The publicity and the security at the White House are so intense that we soon started spending most of our weekends at Camp David. This became even more necessary after the shooting, when even a simple walk on the White House grounds became a major security problem. Camp David gave us a chance to enjoy a little privacy, and we relished it. It was also a place where we could spend time outdoors without anyone staring at us, shouting at us, or taking our picture.
I had expected we would enjoy a similar degree of privacy at our ranch near Santa Barbara, and for the first two or three years we did. But two miles from our ranch house there’s a mountaintop, and pretty soon the television networks installed cameras there. By 1984, with the benefit of telescopic lenses, they were actually able to show Ronnie sitting at the breakfast table. To my mind that’s just as bad as being a Peeping Tom—and Peeping Toms are arrested. We were on our own private property, but because the cameras were mounted on public property, there was nothing we could do about them. I felt a little better when we learned that the people operating those cameras were genuinely embarrassed to be doing this. But they had their orders.
When we’re at the ranch, Ronnie and I usually go riding in the morning. One day, for reasons I no longer remember, I rode a different horse than usual and came back early. The press immediately wanted to know why I had cut the ride short. I answered the question, but later, I realized I was angry. What business was it of theirs? Maybe I didn’t feel like riding that day. Maybe I wanted to read a book. Maybe I wanted to lie down, or work on a speech, or talk to a friend. Maybe I wanted to do nothing at all! This was supposed to be our vacation.
The next morning, I made up a sign saying JUST SAY NO. Then, as Ronnie and I rode by a clearing where we knew the cameras had a good view of us, I held up the sign. As long as we were going to be on TV, I thought I might as well make the most of it.
It was hard not to take it personally that our privacy was invaded so constantly. I repeatedly had to remind myself that this is an age of enormous curiosity about famous people, and that the president and his wife are celebrities. But I don’t believe that the privacy of any other president has been invaded to this extent. I wondered—and still do: Is there something about Ronnie and me that prompts this endless curiosity?
I threw myself into these various first lady roles—spokeswoman, hostess, manager, and friend. I thought all of them were important. But there was one part of the job that outranked them all. Above everything else, the first lady is the president’s wife. After all, that’s the only reason she’s there. Throughout Ronnie’s presidency, there was an ongoing public discussion as to how much influence the first lady should have on the president. It’s hardly a new problem. As long as mankind has lived in groups, there’s always been a question as to how to handle the boss’s wife.
I got used to all the comments, and sometimes I even was able to enjoy them. Ronnie and I once attended a reception at the Ford Theater which featured a particularly good ventriloquist. “Do you know who’s sitting out there?” he asked the dummy. “It’s the leader of the free world.”
“Yes,” replied the dummy, “and I see she’s got her husband with her!”
I had no problem laughing at that one. But no, I was not the power behind the throne.
Did I ever give Ronnie advice? You bet I did. I’m the one who knows him best, and I was the only person in the White House who had absolutely no agenda of her own—except helping him.
And so I make no apologies for telling him what I thought. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you have no right to express your opinions. For eight years I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn’t give you special access, I don’t know what does!
So yes, I gave Ronnie my best advice—whenever he asked for it, and sometimes when he didn’t. But that doesn’t mean he always took it. Ronald Reagan has a mind of his own.
Most of my suggestions were about personnel. I don’t know much about economics or military affairs, but I have strong instincts about people, and I’m a good judge of character. As much as I love Ronnie, I’ll admit he does have at least one fault: He can be naïve about the people around him.
Ronnie tends only to think well of people. While that’s a fine quality in a friend, it can get you into trouble in politics. I don’t think Ronnie always saw that some of the president’s aides were motivated not by loyalty to their boss or to his policies but by their own agendas and personal ambitions.
For example, in November 1981 I was furious when David Stockman, Ronnie’s budget director, revealed in a magazine interview that he didn’t really believe in the economic plan he was supposed to be implementing. Had it been up to me, Stockman would have been out on the street that afternoon. I saw him as a shrewd and crafty man who knew exactly what he was doing. There’s an implied trust when you’re working for the president, any president, and David Stockman clearly violated it. He violated that trust a second time, five years later, when he wrote a self-righteous book about Ronnie’s first term as president.
Ronnie didn’t ask for my opinion about Stockman, but I told him anyway. So did Michael Deaver, Ed Meese, and what seemed like half the Republicans in the Senate. But Ronnie can be stubborn, and he insisted on keeping Stockman. Later, he admitted to me that he wished he had let him go but at the time he trusted Stockman’s judgment and thought he needed him. I believed then, and I believe now, that this was a serious mistake.
If Ronnie had thrown Stockman out when that story appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, he would have made an example of him. It would have been a signal to everybody else who worked for Ronnie that he expected their loyalty. And who knows? Maybe we wouldn’t have had so many kiss-and-tell books about the Reagan years.
Later, Ronnie and I had a similar disagreement about Raymond Donovan, the secretary of Labor. This case was much more complex because, unlike Stockman, Donovan hadn’t done anything wrong. But he was being investigated for fraud and grand larceny, and in politics even the appearance of wrongdoing can be enormously damaging. I could see that this was going to be a long, drawn-out ordeal which would severely limit Donovan’s effectiveness in the Cabinet. The Donovan affair, which dragged on for months, was draining both to Ronnie personally and to the office of the president. Donovan resigned when the indictment was handed down, but as I told Ronnie on any number of occasions, it would have been better for everyone if he’d stepped down earlier.
I felt terribly sorry for Ray Donovan then, and I still do. In 1987, when he was acquitted, he asked, quite properly, “Who do I have to see around here to get my reputation back?” What a sad question to ask!
But when a political appointee turns out to be more of a problem than an asset, even if it’s not his fault, he should step aside.
There were a few other times when I thought that Ronnie was not being well served by some of his senior appointees. When James Watt, secretary of the Interior,
banned the Beach Boys from performing near the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July because they would attract the wrong crowd, I thought that was dumb, and I said so publicly. I knew the Beach Boys from California, I knew they were popular, and they seemed perfectly fine to me.
When Donald Regan became a serious liability for Ronnie, I told Ronnie repeatedly that he should be fired. But it was many months before Ronnie took that advice. There were also times when I felt that people who had known Ronnie for years were taking advantage of his friendship to pursue their own agendas. Here too, if I thought so, I said so.
Once or twice I even took a stand on an issue of policy, such as the time in May 1985 when Ronnie was supposed to lay a wreath at a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany. Months earlier, when our advance team had gone over there, the graves in the cemetery had been covered with snow, and our people had been unable to read the inscriptions. When they asked whether any Nazi war criminals were buried in this cemetery, they were assured by the Germans that this wasn’t the case.
Ronnie’s visit to Bitburg was supposed to be the symbol of our reconciliation with the Germans on the fortieth anniversary of the allied victory in Europe. But after the entire trip had been arranged and announced, we learned that among the two thousand German soldiers buried in Bitburg were forty-seven members of the Waffen SS.
Many Americans, and especially war veterans and members of the Jewish community, were understandably outraged. So was I. I pleaded with Ronnie to cancel the trip.
He too had strong reservations about going to Bitburg. Two days before we left for Europe, he called Chancellor Helmut Kohl and asked him to consider an alternative site—a fortress on the Rhine with no SS connections, which would have served the same symbolic purpose. But Kohl adamantly refused to cancel the Bitburg visit. He insisted that such a change would make him look like an American puppet and would cause the collapse of his government.