An American Life

by Ronald Reagan

  Nancy wanted to make the state dinners we had at the White House more relaxed, as if guests were attending a dinner party at home. She worked hard to choose an interesting variety of guests, inviting people from the academic world, sports, business, entertainment, and other fields. The routine at these dinners was usually the same: After a private reception upstairs, we would descend the grand staircase with the guests of honor, there’d be a receiving line, then Nancy and I would escort them into the state dining room. If the guest of honor was male and married, I sat with his wife beneath Lincoln’s portrait, while Nancy sat across the room with the male guest of honor at her table; that way, the guests on one side of the room would not feel any less important than those on the other side. While dessert was served, a group of army violinists known as the Strolling Strings came into the dining room and played; then I’d give a toast, the guest of honor would respond, and we’d go into the Blue Room for coffee followed by entertainment in the East Room. From there, it was into the foyer where a marine band played dance music.

  At our state dinner honoring President Pertini of Italy, the Strolling Strings had begun moving among the tables when I saw one of them, a very pretty young woman, stroll very close to Pertini. Since I’d heard this courtly gentleman still had an eye for a pretty girl, I tried to catch Nancy’s eye—she was sitting next to him—and smiled at her. Later on, when we went upstairs after dinner, I asked her whether he’d noticed the pretty girl and explained why I’d been trying to catch her eye.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “By that time,” Nancy said, “he had already kissed her hand twice.”

  At a dinner honoring François Mitterrand, he and his wife and Nancy and I finished the receiving line and the four of us walked from the East Room into the state dining room. As was customary, everyone in the room was to stand until Nancy led François to her table and I led Mrs. Mitterrand to my table at the opposite side of the room.

  Nancy and François headed for their table, but Mrs. Mitterrand stood frozen, even after a butler motioned at her that she was to walk toward our table. I whispered, “We’re supposed to go over there to the other side.” But she wouldn’t move. She said something to me very quietly in French, which I didn’t understand. Then she repeated it and I shook my head. I still didn’t know what she was saying; suddenly an interpreter ran up to us and said, “She’s telling you that you’re standing on her gown.”

  Besides making those big state dinners more relaxed, Nancy started holding smaller dinners upstairs for some of our guests, including, among others, Prince Charles and the crown prince of Japan. Usually, we invited thirty or so people to these dinners upstairs in the family dining room. Here the routine was that of a private dinner at home: first, cocktails in the yellow oval room, and then over to the dining room for dinner, with sometimes a little musical entertainment afterward.

  Most of the time, I should emphasize, our dinners in the White House were not this fancy, although when there was a state dinner coming up, we’d sometimes go across the hall to the family dining room for a “rehearsal.” Nancy liked to have a dry run, to make sure the menu was right for the next guests.

  One of the occupational hazards of being president, I learned, is shaking hands. At some receptions in the White House—for members of Congress and their families, the press, and so forth—I’d have to shake as many as one thousand hands a night. Believe it or not, that can leave you with a sore hand.

  Another problem: I’m not very good at remembering faces and names. In national politics, you meet so many people around the country that it’s impossible to remember them all, and as a result I was always afraid I was going to slight someone. On a campaign trip, I might visit five or six states a day and be introduced to sizable groups of local Republican leaders and other people at each stop. The next time you see them, understandably, they all expect you to remember them.

  Sometimes, it was even difficult remembering the names of all the members of the White House staff. There were hundreds of them; I’d be introduced to a new staffer, hear the person’s name once, then see him or her around the White House and sometimes feel embarrassed that I couldn’t instantly recall the name. I’ve met so many people in my life that whenever I encounter someone, I have to assume I might have met that person previously. Before committing myself, I sort of look for clues and react accordingly—although sometimes that technique backfires. Once back in my Hollywood days, a man came up to me in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in New York, stuck out his hand, and said, “You don’t know me . . .” So many people did that to me that I just said, “Wait a minute, oh sure I do, I’m just trying to remember. . . .”

  He said, “No, you don’t know me, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your television program.”

  I don’t think I’m alone in having this kind of problem. I’ve heard about all sorts of tricks people use to deal with it. When Babe Ruth would run into somebody and wasn’t sure whether he had met the person before, he would give a friendly smile and say, “Your name . . . I’m trying to remember.”

  The other person might say, “John,” and the Babe would say, “John, of course I know, it’s your last name I can’t remember.” If the person said, “Smith,” Babe would reverse it and say, “No, I know that, I’d just forgotten your first name.”

  When I’m in a receiving line, I usually stick out my hand and smile in the expectation that the next person might be someone I’ve met before, and if the man or woman says, “The last time I saw you we were at . . .,” I’ll say, “Oh, yes . . .”

  You just have to do something like that to avoid hurting people. On an average day when I was president, I saw about eighty people, ranging from presidents and prime ministers to the newest multiple sclerosis poster child. Some days, there were more than twenty appointments on my schedule, from about nine in the morning until at least five in the afternoon. As the day passes, you have to shift within a few seconds from conducting a meeting about a serious international crisis to greeting the newest Miss America or meeting in the Rose Garden with a group of champion athletes or being photographed during a heart-tugging visit from a disabled child. You get introduced to hundreds of people, hear their names only once, and don’t always put together a name with a face in a moment’s time.

  • • •

  For years, I’ve heard the question: “How could an actor be president?” I’ve sometimes wondered how you could be president and not be an actor.

  When you’ve been in the profession I was in, you get accustomed to criticism in the press—true and untrue, fair and unfair—and learn to take what you read about yourself and others with a big dose of salt. Gossip columnists and critics become a part of your life. A picture you’ve made may be panned by a critic and you’ll say to yourself, “You know, that’s a pretty good movie and the audience likes it.” It teaches you that the press isn’t always right, and prepares you for criticism in politics; you develop a skepticism about what you read, and take it in stride. That kind of experience helps when you start reading things about yourself as president.

  Regarding the press, I’ve always believed a free press is as vital to America as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A probing, responsible press not only keeps the public informed about what’s going on in government, it can keep a watchful eye out to uncover corruption, waste, or mismanagement.

  But an unfortunate phenomenon took root in Washington after Watergate. Understandably, the press—especially the White House press corps—was skeptical about what it was being told about presidential behavior. Some reporters in Washington became more vigorous in their investigative reporting, convinced that if there was one scandal, there were probably more.

  As I have said, a free and aggressive press corps is essential to the health of our democracy. If the press does not tell us, who will? But with that freedom comes a special responsibility to be accurate and fair. The press s
hould remember the great impact its words can have on a person’s life. Sadly, the words questioned about sometimes translate into guilty of in the minds of readers and listeners. That does not mean that reporters shouldn’t do their job. It just means they should be careful.

  I understand that it is part of the job of the Washington press corps to pin down the president and report to the nation on what is really going on inside the White House. Inevitably, the relationship between the press and the president has adversarial moments. I always regretted those moments, however. We weren’t hiding anything, and I was frustrated that I could never convince the press of that.

  It bothered me, too, that, from time to time, some in the press seemed anxious to catch me making a mistake. I don’t know any human being who hasn’t made mistakes or misstatements from time to time; and this is especially likely when a person gives as many speeches and answers as many questions as a president does. Some in the press corps seemed to make a special effort to play “gotcha” with me, especially during a press conference. If they wanted to question our policies or our approach to solving a problem, fine. But isn’t it a little petty to point out every time a t isn’t crossed or an i isn’t dotted?

  Nancy and I never let these moments get in the way of any personal relationships with the press. Every year at Christmastime we hosted a party for the White House press corps, and every summer in Santa Barbara we hosted a barbecue for the press traveling with us. Some of our fondest memories are of meeting the families and friends of the reporters, photographers, and technicians who followed us around the world. Even though we had different roles, there was a very gratifying feeling of shared adventure among us on those occasions.

  I don’t suppose there is a politician alive today who hasn’t had his or her share of rows with the press—that comes with the territory. We may have had our differences from time to time, but we shared some special moments together and I personally liked most of the men and women who covered the White House.

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  EVEN THOUGH I WAS constantly meeting new people and attending public events in the presence of thousands of people, I discovered a surprising dimension to the presidency—a bird-in-a-gilded-cage sense of isolation. More than once during the eight years I lived there, I stood at a window looking out across the big lawn of the White House, through its black iron fence at the people strolling along Pennsylvania Avenue, and found myself envying their freedom. I’d say to myself, “You know, I can’t even walk down to the drugstore and look over the magazine rack anymore. Will I ever be able to do it again?”

  In 1981, before our first Valentine’s Day in Washington, I decided to buy a Valentine for Nancy and told the Secret Service agents that I wanted to leave the White House for a brief shopping excursion. Their response: a chorus of raised eyebrows. But I told them I had been buying a Valentine for Nancy for almost thirty years and didn’t want to stop now, so they drove me to a little gift store near the White House and I bought several cards for her.

  Unbeknownst to me, Nancy had done the same thing, and we both surprised each other that night with our Valentines.

  But that was just about my last shopping expedition outside the White House. It caused such a commotion that I never wanted to do that to a shopkeeper again.

  Back in Hollywood, I had learned that having a familiar face can sometimes cause embarrassing attention when you are out in public. When I was governor, Nancy and I learned how security requirements could impose limits on our movements. We’d gotten used to that. But it was nothing compared with life in the White House, especially after the shooting at the Hilton.

  No matter what we did or where we went, elaborate security arrangements were required, and usually had to be planned out weeks in advance. Every time we went out, it was in a caravan of five or six cars behind a blizzard of red lights and screaming sirens. Even if the Secret Service allowed us to go to church, we’d arrive there in a siren-screaming motorcade accompanied by legions of reporters and security people. No longer was going to church a pleasant Sunday morning experience, it was a news event: The other people in the church would have to pass through a magnetometer before they could get in; and once we were seated in church, Nancy and I often felt uncomfortable because so many people in the other pews were looking at us instead of listening to the sermon.

  Things got worse after we started getting reports of terrorist hit squads. We were told that our going to church might result in an assassination attempt that could cause the deaths of many other people there. Very unhappily, we just had to stop going to church altogether, and we really missed it.

  Even inside the White House, our movements were limited. I had to avoid getting too close to certain windows because of the possibility of sharpshooters and, except at a few spots surrounded by hedges or buildings, we couldn’t go for a walk on the White House grounds because we would be exposed to buildings from which a gunman might take aim.

  I’m really not complaining, though. There were plenty of things to compensate for the freedom we lost, one of the greatest being Camp David—a slice of heaven a half hour’s helicopter ride from the White House where we spent many weekends surrounded by 150 acres of beautiful woods.

  Pat Nixon told Nancy, “Without Camp David, you’ll go stir crazy.” Now I can understand what she meant.

  As president, the days I hated most were those with nonstop meetings, one after another, with no time in between to collect my thoughts, and with me scheduled to make remarks or give a short speech at each of them. The days I liked best were those Fridays when I could break away a little early, about three or three thirty, and take off for Camp David.

  The president’s home at Camp David, called Aspen, is a beautiful rustic house with beamed ceilings, wood-paneled walls, and big windows that look out at the forest. Just as we did at Rancho del Cielo, Nancy and I experienced a sense of liberation at Camp David that we never found in Washington. Because the perimeter was guarded, we could just open a door and take a walk. That’s a freedom, incidentally, that you don’t fully appreciate until you’ve lost it.

  Lyndon Johnson, I’m told, found psychological relief from the isolation of the White House by getting in his Lincoln convertible and driving it at high speed near his ranch in Texas. Once he was pulled over for speeding and the traffic officer came up to his car, realized the driver was the president of the United States, and said, “Oh, my God almighty,” to which Lyndon replied, “And don’t you forget it.” Somebody told me another story about Lyndon that took place out on the South Lawn of the White House. As he was getting ready to leave on a trip, he mistakenly started walking toward the wrong helicopter. A Secret Service man caught up with him and said, “Mr. President, that is your helicopter over there.” Lyndon turned around and said, “Son, they’re all my helicopters.”

  I usually took a pile of homework and made my weekly radio broadcast during our weekends at Camp David. But there was almost always time to relax in front of a fire with a book. When the weather was right, we’d go swimming; during the summer, we often ate our meals on the patio. There were always a dozen or so members of the White House staff with us, and on Friday and Saturday nights we usually all got together to watch a movie with big baskets of popcorn in front of us.

  In a way, it was like a big family that included the camp commander, the Secret Service supervisor, our lead helicopter pilot and my military and communications aides; Mark Weinberg of the press office; Eddie Serrano, our chief steward; Dr. John Hutton and his wife, Barbara; and Jim Kuhn, my personal assistant, and his wife, Carole, who usually brought their two children with them. At first, the movies we watched were new or recent releases from Hollywood. Then I began trying to sandwich in a few older movies from my generation. Before long, the staff, most of whom were relative youngsters, only wanted to see golden oldies; so each Saturday night we’d bring out an old movie featuring stars such as Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney, and occasionally a couple of actors nam
ed Reagan and Davis.

  Every month the White House received thousands of letters addressed to the president. A staff of volunteers went through them, and each week chose thirty or so for me to look over. I tried to answer as many as I could during the weekends at Camp David.

  The letters covered every topic under the sun, a few less serious than others, as my reply to one from a young man in South Carolina indicates:

  Dear Andy:

  I’m sorry to be so late in answering your letter, but as you know, I’ve been in China and found your letter here upon my return.

  Your application for disaster relief has been duly noted but I must point out one technical problem; the authority declaring the disaster is supposed to make the request. In this case, your mother.

  However, setting that aside, I’ll have to point out the larger problem of available funds. This has been a year of disasters: 539 hurricanes as of May 4th and several more since, numerous floods, forest fires, drought in Texas and a number of earthquakes. What I’m getting at is that funds are dangerously low.

  May I make a suggestion? This Administration, believing that government has done many things that could better be done by volunteers at the local level, has sponsored a Private Sector Initiatives Program, calling upon people to practice volunteerism in the solving of a number of local problems.

  Your situation appears to be a natural. I’m sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster. Therefore, you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program to go along with the more than 3000 already underway in our nation. Congratulations.

  Give my best regards to your mother.