by Nancy Reagan
The safety problem came to a head one Friday afternoon when the fire alarms went off. By then we were all living there, and I ran into Ron’s room, grabbed him by the hand, and we tore down the stairs. It turned out to be a false alarm, but I couldn’t help but wonder what had made the alarm go off. I still don’t know.
There were no fire escapes in the mansion. There was a rope in our bedroom, which you could throw out the window and shinny down. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
I went to the fire chief and asked, “What should I tell my son in case there’s a real fire? We can’t even open the windows because they were painted shut years ago.”
He replied, “Well, Mrs. Reagan, it’s very simple. Just tell him to take a drawer out the dresser, hold it in front of him, run across the room, break the window, and climb out!”
Terrific, I thought. How am I going to explain that to an eight-year-old without scaring him half to death?
When Ronnie came home that night, I said, “Guess what, we’re moving. We can’t live here anymore. I won’t raise a child in a house that’s not safe.”
Ronnie supported me, but his advisers were outraged.
“It can’t be done!” they said.
“Political suicide!”
“You’ll get crucified!”
“It’ll ruin the governor!”
I didn’t like to go against my husband’s staff, but I held firm. “I can’t help it,” I told them. “I can’t fulfill my duties as the wife of the governor, and my responsibilities as a mother. Something has to give. Besides, I really think the people of California will understand.”
And they did—especially the mothers. There were a few objections in the press, but I didn’t receive more than four or five critical postcards. And I was vindicated a few years later, when the mansion was turned into a museum and the Sacramento fire marshal refused to allow visitors to go upstairs. We could sleep there, but visitors couldn’t go up!
In April of 1967 we moved into an English-style country house in the suburbs. Although the governor’s family is supposed to receive free housing, we paid the rent ourselves. Later, when the owners decided to sell, a group of our friends bought the house and we continued renting it from them.
Although we came to love that house, it was far from ideal. It was too small to entertain the legislators, for example, so we held an annual party for them in the summer—outdoors. We would bring in entertainers like Jack Benny, Danny Thomas, and Red Skelton, and I’d always send a note to our neighbors to explain that things would be a little noisy that night. At the first of these parties, I noticed all the neighborhood kids leaning over the fence to hear Jack Benny. I invited them in, and it became an annual routine—the kids would sit around the pool and watch the show.
The first time Ronnie carne home to our new house, he said he knew we had done the right thing when he saw all the bicycles out on the lawn. Here, Ron could have a normal life. There was a big backyard where he built a treehouse, and he and his friends would sometimes sleep out there on warm nights. Back in the mansion there had been no grounds where Ron could play, and one of my saddest memories of that period was of looking out the window and seeing him throwing a football with a policeman in the driveway.
I hated that old mansion so much that during Ronnie’s second term as governor I became involved in building a new governor’s mansion for our successor. We found a fine property in the suburbs overlooking the American River, with lovely old trees and a beautiful view. The land had been donated to the state, so there was no cost to the taxpayer. All the legislature had to do was approve funds to build the house, which they did. And I began to collect furniture—shades of things to come.
Ironically, the governor after Ronnie was Jerry Brown, a bachelor (and Pat Brown’s son), who decided not to live in the new mansion. He took two apartments, put them together, and slept on the floor.
We furnished the house we had moved to with items from our ranch in Lake Malibu, which we had sold after Ronnie was elected, and some new things I bought. I also took up a collection of donated items, and I was able to beg and scrounge some nice furniture from people who were breaking up old houses.
I certainly wasn’t prepared to be attacked for my efforts by Jesse Unruh, the Speaker of the California legislature, who was running against Ronnie in 1970. When he accused me of collecting these items for my personal use, I got so mad that I decided to hold my first press conference. I answered all questions about the donated furniture, the house we were living in, the rent we were paying—anything anyone wanted to ask. This must have done the trick, because Jesse never brought it up again. As for the donated furniture, it was all stored for future use, and I’ve often wondered what became of it.
Once the housing problem was out of the way, the press started asking what my next project would be. Back in Los Angeles I had been a member of the Colleagues, a group which works for unwed mothers and their children. But when I came to Sacramento, I didn’t have one particular project in mind. Eventually, however, I found one.
I had always been interested in hospitals, partly, I suppose, because of my father’s work, and as the governor’s wife I visited all kinds—for children, for the elderly, for the mentally retarded, and for veterans. One day, at Pacific State Hospital, I was introduced to the Foster Grandparents Program. This project, started by Sargent Shriver, made it possible for older people to befriend mentally retarded and institutionalized children. What excited me most about this program was that both sides benefited. Older people, who often feel lonely, unneeded, and unloved, have so much to give—especially to children, who need more love and attention than any institution can provide. When you bring these two groups together, each one provides what the other one needs, and everyone is better off.
The “grandparents,” who work with the children five half-days a week, often come to feel that their lives have been given new meaning. Suddenly there’s a reason to get up in the morning, and a purpose to their lives. They also tend to be patient and tolerant, and aware of the little changes and developments in the children. Naturally, the children respond well to this extra love and attention, and the difference it makes in their lives is remarkable.
I couldn’t wait to tell Ronnie about this new program, which at the time was small and poorly funded. With his help, I was able to expand it to all state hospitals. It was then picked up by ACTION, the volunteer-service agency, which provided further funding. The Foster Grandparents Program eventually spread into other states too, and it now includes not only the retarded but also deaf children and youthful offenders. It’s really a marvelous program, and I hope it will be expanded further.
I also spent a lot of time in veterans’ hospitals, visiting American soldiers who had been wounded in Vietnam. If you ever start feeling sorry for yourself, try visiting hospitals. I’d talk with these men, and before I’d leave I’d ask if they wanted me to call their mothers or their wives. I’d take down the names and numbers and when I returned home I’d start making the calls, which always seemed to follow the same script—something like this:
“Hello, Mrs. Johnson?”
“Yes?”
“This is Nancy Reagan.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, it really is. I saw your son in the hospital today and he sends his love.”
Eventually they would realize that it really was me, and they’d start to cry. Then I’d start to cry. Then we’d both cry!
I soon became involved in the issue of prisoners of war, and I corresponded and talked on the phone with many of the mothers, wives, and children of these men. The women I came to know were just amazing. In many cases they didn’t even know whether their husbands and sons were dead or alive. But they never gave up hope.
When the POWs started coming home, Ronnie, Ron, and I watched on television with tears streaming down our faces. “I can’t stand it,” I said. “I’ve got to get my arms around those boys. We’ve got to do something for them.”
; Ronnie and I gave four dinners for the returning POWs from California—two at our home in Sacramento for those from the northern part of the state, and two more in Los Angeles for those from the south. I felt it was important to hold these dinners in the warmth of a home, rather than in a hotel ballroom, and I told the former prisoners to bring along anyone they wanted—wife, mother, sister, girlfriend.
The first dinner in Sacramento was an unforgettable experience for Ronnie and me. The men had been home only a few days, and emotions were running high. The first men to come back were those who had been imprisoned the longest, and our neighbors lined up on both sides of the street to greet them. As they came into the house, I gave each one of them a hug. When Commander Charles Southwick presented me with the tin spoon he had eaten with during his seven years of captivity, I was in tears again.
During those dinners they told us stories that were so harrowing that we wondered how anyone could have survived such tortures. I could only think, Lord, I hope that if I had been in their position, I’d have had the strength to withstand it all.
The men also described some of the mental games they had played to keep from losing their sanity, and the systems they had devised to communicate with one another by tapping on the cell walls. We actually saw two men who had never met before suddenly throw their arms around each other. They had become friends during their years of captivity, when they lived in adjoining cells and communicated by tapping on the walls in code. Each one knew all about the other’s wife, children, everything—just from the tapping.
At each of the dinners, one of the men got up to propose a toast to Ronnie, to thank him for what he had done by standing up for them and supporting them. And then Ronnie would get up and say, “No, we’re here to thank you, for all you’ve done for us.” Later, Ronnie and I attended all of their reunions. And I still have every letter a POW sent me, and every little memento—that tin spoon, a pair of lieutenant’s bars, and even a package of Vietnamese cigarettes. Ronnie accomplished a great deal during his eight years as governor of California, and in my own way, I suppose I did too. But for me, the return of the POWs marked the high point of Ronnie’s administration.
When Ronnie had decided to run for governor, I knew that our lives would be very different. But I couldn’t imagine how different until we actually moved to Sacramento. For the first time we had to deal with a press corps that wasn’t always friendly, and with political opponents who were constantly on the offensive.
One afternoon, shortly after the inauguration, I flew from Sacramento to San Diego during a big budget fight that Ronnie was having with the legislature. Sitting directly behind me, three men were having a heated discussion about Ronnie’s attempt to cut state spending, which they opposed.
I was new as a political wife. I had been through a campaign, so I knew that not everybody in California agreed with Ronnie’s positions. But never before had I been in a situation where, just a few inches away, people were ripping him apart. As these men talked on, I could feel myself growing more and more angry.
Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed the button to lower the back of my seat until I was practically leaning into them. Then I turned around and said, “That’s my husband you’re talking about! You don’t know what you’re saying. He’s going on television tonight, and if you watch him you’ll learn the real story of the budget.”
Those poor men! They probably wished they’d taken some other flight. The security officer traveling with me sank lower and lower in his seat, and I noticed he never went on another trip with me. But when we got off the plane, the people across the aisle said, “Good for you! It’s wonderful to hear a wife stand up for her husband.”
When your husband is in public office, you can’t always speak freely and give your side of the story. So whenever a negative article about Ronnie came out, I got into the habit of taking a bath, where I would hold imaginary conversations with the reporter or the politician who had written or said something terrible. I was sensational during these encounters—I could always think of just the right thing to say. And of course, with nobody to answer back, I always came out the winner. I finished those baths feeling great. I stopped holding these imaginary conversations before we moved to Washington, and it’s a good thing, too. Otherwise, I would have spent eight solid years in the tub!
Another new problem we had to deal with—and another harbinger of things to come—was death threats. In 1968, after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the federal government had sent Secret Service details to protect several prominent governors, including Nelson Rockefeller in New York and Ronnie in California. A few weeks later, we were told that a woman in the East had called the police to say that her husband had left home with a gun after telling her he was going to kill the president of the United States and the governor of California. The FBI tracked him down and arrested him in Lake Tahoe.
I don’t know how many threats came in during our years in Sacramento, and I never wanted to know. But at one point I heard over the car radio that there was a threat that I would be beheaded and my head sent to Ronnie unless he released a certain prisoner. Ronnie had been told about this but had decided not to tell me. He was upset to learn that I knew about it—but believe me, not half as upset as I was!
During our first year in Sacramento, Ronnie and I were in bed one night when we heard a loud bang. “That sounds like a gun shot,” Ronnie said, whereupon I immediately ran out on the balcony to see what had happened—not a smart thing to do. Just then, a Secret Service agent came running upstairs with a shotgun. “Everybody downstairs!” he said. “Turn off all the lights and stay away from the windows.”
One of the agents had spotted two men trying to light a Molotov cocktail beneath our bedroom window. He fired a shot at the men, but they escaped in a car. The next morning, the agents found the firebomb. Usually these things are Coke bottles filled with gasoline, but this one was a magnum-size champagne bottle. Only in California! It doesn’t take much to imagine what would have been left of us if that bottle had come sailing through our bedroom window.
There are times when holding public office forces you to confront the fundamental issues of life and death. Early in Ronnie’s term, a man named Aaron Mitchell was scheduled to be executed in San Quentin for murdering a policeman during a robbery. Ronnie has a soft spot for individuals in trouble, but he also supports the death penalty. After examining the case, he couldn’t find any valid reason to pardon Aaron Mitchell.
The execution was set for ten in the morning. The night before, a group of protesters held an all-night silent vigil outside our house. I remember Ron, who was only eight, watching this strange and eerie scene through the window and wondering what it all meant. We tried to explain why Ronnie had made his decision, and why some people didn’t agree with it. The protesters wanted to have church bells ring at the hour of the execution so everyone could pray for the man’s soul. I had no objection to that, but I thought, Wouldn’t it be nice if the bells could also ring when somebody is murdered, so we could also pray for that person’s soul.
It was shortly after this that Ronnie received a letter from an elderly man in San Francisco who ran a little mom-and-pop store with his wife. He had been robbed a few days after the execution of Aaron Mitchell, which had been widely covered in the press. When one of the robbers tried to stab him, he had shouted out in desperation, “If you kill me you’ll get the gas chamber!” When his assailant heard that, he hesitated for a moment and then ran off. It isn’t always that simple, but this letter did reinforce our feeling that the death penalty really is a deterrent to crime.
This book isn’t the place to discuss the political achievements of Ronnie’s two administrations in Sacramento. But I was struck by how much Ronnie had taken to politics—partly, I’m sure, because he could make a difference in people’s lives, even in little ways. When an eighty-year-old man wrote to say that he was getting married but didn’t have a suit to wear, Ronnie sent him one of his own
. When a soldier from Sacramento who was fighting in Vietnam sent Ronnie a money order and asked him to arrange for flowers to be sent to his wife on their anniversary, Ronnie delivered them personally to the astonished woman. When two sisters wrote to say that their retarded brother wanted a rocking chair, Ronnie sent them his own.
One day Ronnie received a letter from a kindergarten teacher who wrote that she had been preparing her class for a trip that would take them to the governor’s mansion. “Does anyone know the name of our governor?” she asked.
Nobody did. “Come on, children,” she said. “I’m sure you know his name. It’s Ronald—”
At which point the entire class shouted in unison: “McDonald!”
One of Ronnie’s biggest regrets during these years was that he was frequently at odds with college students. Back when he was running for governor, he had been welcomed on campus because he was running as an outsider. But as soon as he was elected, they saw him as part of the establishment.
Ronnie’s first term happened to coincide with the big student protests of the late 1960s. I once accompanied him to a speech in Santa Barbara, where we were greeted by hundreds of young protesters. Some of them, including a number of professors, were barefoot and barechested and had obscenities written across their chests and their backs. They were gathered outside the hall, and when Ronnie started to speak they shouted the most obscene things I had ever heard. I just couldn’t believe it! The organizers had to close the windows so Ronnie could be heard, but even then he had to shout above the noise. I remember thinking the world had gone mad.
Ronnie continued trying to keep up a dialogue. Once, at a meeting with students at the University of California, a student got up to say that it was impossible for people of Ronnie’s generation to understand the next generation of young people. “You grew up in a different world,” the student said. “Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers …”