My Turn

by Nancy Reagan

  When he paused for breath, Ronnie said, “You’re right. It’s true that we didn’t have those things when we were young. We invented them.”

  I remember the last hour I spent in our house in Sacramento, on the last day of Ronnie’s second term. For weeks I had been packing and supervising the move. This piece of furniture went to the state, that one to our new ranch in Santa Barbara, and the rest back to our home in Pacific Palisades. It was so hectic that I hadn’t had time to dwell on the fact that we were leaving.

  Suddenly, I found myself sitting alone in the house. Except for our bed, all the furniture was gone. The sun was setting, and as I waited for Ronnie to pick me up so we could go to one last reception, I sat on the bed and looked out into the garden, which was so lovely, with all of the camellias in bloom. We’d come to love that old house.

  As it grew darker outside, and I sat alone in that empty room, I thought, So this is how it ends. Our eight years of politics are over. True, some of Ronnie’s advisers were talking about Ronnie’s running for president in 1976, but I didn’t really expect that to happen. As we left Sacramento that night, I honestly believed we were leaving politics forever.

  9

  Our Children

  NO mother finds it easy to write about difficulties with her children. But our children, and our relationships with them, became such an issue while Ronnie was president that I can’t ignore the subject. I love our children, and I didn’t want to talk about them while we were living in the White House. But yes, we had our problems. Every family has problems, and we were no exception.

  I say every family, but in fact we are really two families, not one. I’m willing to take my lumps for what I did, but as I’ll explain, I wasn’t responsible for everything that happened.

  What I wanted most in all the world was to be a good wife and mother. As things turned out, I guess I’ve been more successful at the first than at the second.

  There are four Reagan children, and in order of birth they are Maureen, Michael, Patti, and Ron. Maureen and Michael are the children of Ronnie’s first marriage, to Jane Wyman. Maureen was born in 1941, and Michael was born and adopted in 1946. After Ronnie and Jane separated in 1949, Jane had custody of the children. Ronnie—and when I came along, Ronnie and I—tried to be there for Maureen and Michael, but in fact we had little to say about their daily lives.

  Patti was born in 1952, headstrong from the start. Ron came in 1958, and over the years I have probably been closest to him.

  Each of the four Reagan children is completely different from the others. Apparently, all of them have felt at one time or another that Ronnie and I were so devoted to each other that there wasn’t room for them in our affections, and that they were somehow left out. That was never our intention, and if they sometimes felt that way, I am truly sorry.

  Maureen and Ron have both told me that they have sometimes felt their father was a little remote from them. When I mentioned this to Ronnie, he was surprised; he didn’t feel distant. But now that we have left the White House, all these misunderstandings are easier to work out.

  During Ronnie’s presidency, our family and its problems were written about constantly. Ronnie had run for office on a platform of traditional family values, which both of us believe in and try to practice. But I always felt hurt when people said we were hypocrites because our own family sometimes fell short of those values. It’s true that we weren’t always able to live up to the principles we believed in, but that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in them.

  I also think that our relationships with our children weren’t as bad as they were portrayed. For example, it was often said that Ronnie and I had little contact with them while we were living in the White House. But while it’s true that we didn’t see each other as often as we would have liked, we also didn’t notify the press each time one of us sent a letter, a card, or a gift, or picked up the phone.

  Before Ronnie and I came to the White House, the American public had grown accustomed to having the president’s children living there. Before us, there were the Carter kids, and before them, the Fords, the Nixons, the Johnsons, and the Kennedys. But when Ronnie was elected, our children were already grown and married; they had their own lives and careers. Except for Ron, who spent four years in New York, they were settled in California. In other words, our “children” weren’t children at all. They were independent adults who lived three thousand miles away, and Michael had children of his own.

  Like our own parents, Ronnie and I have always believed that when children get to be a certain age, you should let them live their own lives. As they become adults, it’s up to them to determine how much closeness there should be. This wasn’t always easy for us, and there were times when I wished they would call more often. But for better or worse, we wanted to give them their independence.

  That’s not to say that Ronnie and I were ideal parents, or that our children were angels. Ronnie’s work was always demanding, and we faced the difficulties of a blended family without much communication between us and Jane Wyman. In addition, each of the children has a strong and independent personality. But we did the best we could, and we never stopped trying.

  One of the disadvantages of living in the White House is that your family problems often end up on the front page. When that happens, even a minor misunderstanding can take on a life of its own. A dispute or a harsh word that might easily be resolved or forgiven in private gets blown out of all proportion when you’re facing an audience of two hundred and forty million people.

  My problems in 1984 with Michael are a good example of how the limelight can complicate family life. There had been some tension between us, and in November of that year, just before Ronnie and I left the White House to fly to the ranch for Thanksgiving, I was interviewed by the Washington Times. As usual, there were pointed questions about how the various members of our family were getting along—and especially about Michael and me.

  “Are you going to see Michael?”

  “Are you in touch with Michael?”

  “Has Michael called you?”

  “Will Michael and his family be joining you for Thanksgiving dinner at the ranch?”

  Question after question. Finally, frustrated and at the end of my rope, I said, “No, there is an estrangement right now. We are sorry about it, and we hope it can be resolved, but we don’t believe in discussing family matters in public.”

  That was true. There really was an estrangement, and I really didn’t want to discuss it. But I should have known better than to use an inflammatory word like “estrangement” in an interview. I was feeling the pressure, and the following month, when I saw Michael, I apologized.

  But by then the damage had been done. When the interview appeared, Michael and his wife, Colleen, were in Nebraska spending the holiday with Colleen’s parents. Not surprisingly, my “estrangement” comment was repeated on the television news, and when Michael heard it he called Ronnie, hurt and outraged. Ronnie tried to calm him down, but Michael was furious. “I wish I had never been adopted by you,” he said—and hung up.

  The press didn’t know about this, but they soon appeared at Colleen’s parents’ home, hoping Michael would respond to my comment. He didn’t disappoint them. Nancy, he explained, was obviously trying to cover up for the fact that she hadn’t yet seen his daughter, Ashley, who had been born about a year before.

  Now it was my turn to get angry. But this exchange had already gone on too long, and I didn’t want to extend it further. A month later, when Ronnie and I were in Los Angeles, Michael and Colleen came to our hotel to see us. We had a good, honest talk and were able to clear up some of our misunderstandings. But it would be a long time before Michael and I finally straightened everything out, because you can never fully take back a public remark.

  Nor can you undo mistakes you’ve made along the way in raising your children—and I made my share. When Michael came to live with us (which I’ll come to shortly), I didn’t know how to handle a rebellious
teenager. With Patti, I now think, we were too lenient. Maureen and I drifted apart for a number of years. Ron and I had a somewhat smoother time, although even with Ron there were bumps along the way.

  It has been a difficult marriage as far as the children are concerned.

  I became a parent the day I married Ronnie, and I learned what many other women know, that it’s not easy to marry a man who already has children. You want them to like you, and so does your husband, but that usually doesn’t happen overnight, and it may not happen ever. They may resent you—at least initially—and they’re understandably jealous because you’re taking away a piece of their father. It takes time before you can develop a relationship.

  About a year before we were married, Ronnie introduced me to Maureen and Michael. Maureen was ten, and she and I hit it off right away. She used to visit me in my apartment with her Victrola and her records, and we’d listen to music together. She’d even help me clean the place, and although I never told her, I think she trailed in more dust than we cleaned up. But mostly we were together on Saturdays and Sundays, when Ronnie and I took the kids out to his new ranch in Lake Malibu.

  During those car rides in Ronnie’s beat-up old red station wagon, Ronnie used to entertain us with wonderful stories. Maureen, who has the sharpest memory of anybody I know, still remembers some of her father’s tall tales about his “past lives.” In one of her favorites, Ronnie told the kids how he used to be a cold germ who loved to infect innocent people with coughs, sneezes, and runny noses. One day, the little cold germ decides to take a nap in a strange, green substance, which turns out to be penicillin. End of germ. When Ronnie wasn’t telling stories, he would pretend to listen in on people’s telephone conversations as he drove by their telephone poles. He would then act out the little dialogues he had supposedly overheard.

  As soon as I joined these car rides, Maureen and I started singing together. Ronnie had taught her the words to some college drinking songs, and to “La Marseillaise.” (That couldn’t have been easy.) I have always loved Broadway musicals, and I taught Maureen the duet “I Hear Singing,” from Call Me Madam. We sang that song so often that Michael, who was five, began to groan whenever he heard it, while Ronnie would honk the horn and yell “Enough!” until we gave up. Years later, when somebody sang “I Hear Singing” at “In Performance at the White House,” Maureen and I flashed each other big smiles across the room.

  A few months before Ronnie and I were married, Maureen gave me an enormous vote of confidence. Ronnie used to ride a black thoroughbred mare named Tar Baby, which appeared with him in several of his movies. He bred Tar Baby to a gray stallion named Gypsy Minstrel, and the result was a beautiful spotted filly. Maureen loved that little horse from the moment it was born, and it was her suggestion to call it Nancy D. I knew enough to be flattered. I think Maureen liked me better when I was her friend Nancy Davis than she did when I became her stepmother, Mrs. Ronald Reagan.

  • • •

  Ronnie’s divorce was difficult, and it had a great impact not only on Ronnie but on me—and certainly on the children.

  Jane Wyman sent Maureen and Michael to Chadwick, a boarding school in Palos Verdes, about an hour from Los Angeles. Michael was only five and a half when he started at Chadwick, and I found that appalling. Ronnie did too, to the point where he thought seriously about filing for custody. But he gave up that idea when he was advised that it would mean an ugly court battle, with enormous publicity, in which he would have to show that Jane was an unfit mother. All of this would have been terrible for the children, and it was also unlikely to succeed, as it was almost unheard-of in those days for custody to be given to the father. Even so, I believe that Ronnie always felt guilty that he didn’t step in and try to get the kids to live with us.

  Now that I’m older and more experienced in life, I think there’s probably more I could have done to help Maureen and Michael when they were young. If I had been more confident in myself as a mother, I think I would have. It’s too bad that the most important job we have in life—parenting—is the one we have no training for.

  And looking back now, I can see that the fact that I was never on close terms with Jane didn’t help matters; we just didn’t have the kind of relationship where I could pick up the phone and talk to her about the kids. And all of us were in unfamiliar territory. Ronnie had never expected to be divorced, and despite all the talk about the high divorce rate in Hollywood, we didn’t know any other families with small children in which a divorce had occurred. It wasn’t like today, when joint custody and blended families are so common. We didn’t really know how to act, and it was tough on all of us.

  But Maureen and Michael suffered the most. First they were hit with the divorce, which came without any warning. Then they had to get used to a new stepmother, me. But at least they knew me; when Jane Wyman remarried in the fall of 1952, a few months after Ronnie and I were married, the children met Fred Karger, their new stepfather, only the day before the wedding.

  And then, just three weeks after their mother’s wedding, Michael and Maureen suddenly found themselves with a half sister when Patti was born.

  While Maureen and I got along well before Ronnie and I were married, our relationship started to deteriorate after I became Mrs. Reagan. Maureen was now eleven, and she surely must have resented me; as a young girl would see it, I had “taken away” her father. Neither of us can remember a specific incident or an argument, but we just saw each other less. Although Maureen kept in touch with her father, her relationship with me blew hot and cold.

  When Patti was born in 1952, Maureen came by to visit. At the time, her class had just been shown a film about cesarean childbirth, and I have a distinct memory of lying in bed, talking to Maureen, who said, “Oh, is that what they did to you?” She was very concerned and sweet.

  Then there was a long stretch when we rarely saw each other. Maureen was sent to a Catholic high school in Tarrytown, New York, and then, briefly, to college in Virginia. She dropped out of school when she turned eighteen, and moved to Washington, where she went to work in a real estate company and got married. Ronnie and I went back East for the wedding, and that was a close time for us with Maureen—perhaps because we were the only family there. It was in Washington that Maureen became interested in politics, and became a Republican. (She likes to tease Ronnie by telling him that she was a Republican before he was, which is true.)

  Maureen and I drifted apart during these years, and somehow it became easier for us not to talk. Now, in hindsight, I wish I had made more of an effort, but Maureen always seemed to be on her way somewhere, taking charge of her life, and we never really connected. With Ronnie it was different. No matter how long Maureen was away, they stayed in touch and were always able to pick up where they’d left off.

  In 1982, Maureen decided to run for the United States Senate. Privately, both Ronnie and I thought it might have been wiser—and that she would have had a better chance—if her first campaign had been on a smaller scale than a statewide Senate race. But when Maureen makes up her mind to do something, she does it. She entered the California primary as the only woman among eight Republican candidates, including Barry Goldwater, Jr., Pete McCloskey, Pete Wilson, and the incumbent, S. I. Hayakawa.

  The press had a field day when the president of the United States did not endorse his daughter in the primary. But Maureen didn’t ask for Ronnie’s endorsement, and she didn’t expect it, either. She was well aware that ever since her father was elected governor of California in 1966, he has never endorsed any candidate in the primaries. Instead, he has always worked to unify the party for the general election.

  In 1981, before Maureen had made a final decision, Ronnie was asked by a reporter if his daughter really intended to run. “I hope not,” he replied.

  Ronnie wasn’t sure Maureen was fully prepared for a life in politics, and he knew how tough campaigns can be. But that’s not how the comment came across. Here again, family members were communicating thr
ough the media, and here again, feelings were hurt. Ronnie recognized immediately that his comment might be misinterpreted, and he called Maureen to apologize, and to explain what he’d really meant. She accepted his apology, but she was still embarrassed and hurt.

  What upset Maureen even more was that her uncle Neil, Ronnie’s brother, took a couple of shots at her in the campaign. “Just because her father is the president of the United States,” he said, “is no reason for her to get very busy and ambitious.” Then Neil made a radio commercial in which he said, “We Reagans urge you to support Pete Wilson.”

  This infuriated Maureen, and I can’t blame her. Although Ronnie remained neutral, the Wilson campaign continued to use that misleading commercial, with Neil insisting that “we Reagans” referred only to himself and his wife. As a result, relations between Maureen and Neil have been frosty ever since. (Pete Wilson won the primary and the election, and was reelected in 1988.)

  It wasn’t until the White House years that Maureen and I really got to know each other again and gradually became close. One of the brightest spots in my life was when Maureen started calling me Mom. It didn’t happen until Ronnie’s second term, and neither of us has ever mentioned it, but I see it as a real hurdle that we overcame, and a reminder that it’s never too late for family members to reconcile their differences and become friends.

  Although Maureen was living in California with her husband, Dennis Revell, she made frequent visits to Washington in connection with her position as cochair of the Republican National Committee. Pretty soon she was there almost all the time, living with us and sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, which she loved. These visits solidified her relationship both with her father and with me.

  Near the end of Ronnie’s first term, Maureen became concerned that Ronnie’s support among women wasn’t strong enough. She decided to do something about it, and she started speaking to women’s groups all across the country about the Reagan administration. I supported her in this project, at which she was remarkably effective. Ronnie’s support among women increased dramatically, and during the 1984 race he received well over 50 percent of the female vote.