by Sheila Tate
Copyright © 2018 by Sheila Tate
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Forum, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
crownpublishing.com
CROWN FORUM with colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Photograph credits are located on this page.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 9781524762193
Ebook ISBN 9781524762216
Cover design by Alane Gianetti
Cover photograph: Portrait of Nancy Davis Reagan by Aaron Shikler, 1987/White House Collection/White House Historical Association
v5.2
ep
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword by George H.W. Bush
Introduction
Chapter 1: Elegance and Style
Chapter 2: The Boss
Chapter 3: The New First Lady
Chapter 4: Always an Actress
Chapter 5: Just Say No
Chapter 6: Protector in Chief
Chapter 7: The Perfectionist
Chapter 8: Family Ties
Nancy’s Album
Chapter 9: Christmas at the White House
Chapter 10: The Art Lover
Chapter 11: Finding Her Voice
Chapter 12: Press Contacts
Chapter 13: Diplomat in Chief
Chapter 14: Planes, Trips, and Weather Reports
Chapter 15: Protecting Nancy
Photo Insert
Chapter 16: Up Close and Personal
Chapter 17: Blame It on Nancy
Chapter 18: No Better Friend
Chapter 19: White House Humor
Chapter 20: Searching for Privacy
Chapter 21: Staff Memories
Chapter 22: The Long Goodbye
Chapter 23: No Words
Acknowledgments
Photograph Credits
To John K. Youel Jr., my husband of twelve years, for his superhuman patience and his knowledge of how to fix my Epson printer and scanner. For his superb chauffeuring skills and his patience with Daisy, my yappy dog. Not to mention his surgical skills, which he still puts to occasional use in repairing various household items. And for forcing me onto the golf course a few times during the writing of this book to regain my equilibrium and sense of proportion.
To my children, Hager Patton and Courtney Manzel, and to their great spouses, Shannon and Kevin, and to my perfect grandchildren, Colin, Avery, Greyson, and Lily; to my amazing stepdaughters, Jennifer Tate Citron and Laura Tate Hudgins, and to their husbands, Jerry and Snow, and to their five wonderful children, Chloe and Eve Citron and Tate, Finley, and Sawyer Hudgins. Hager was my long-distance computer guru whose skills were invaluable; Courtney was my eagle-eyed legal authority who helped in a million ways.
To John’s children, Ellen and Mahzer Ahmad and David and Chrissy Youel, and to John’s four fun grandchildren, Jack, Maggie, Sophia, and Zakaria. Ellen performed a miracle—helping me find George Opfer, Nancy’s lead Secret Service agent.
Foreword
Nancy Reagan was truly one of the most loyal and protective spouses I have ever met in my ninety-three years. My dear friend Ronald Reagan could not have asked for a better partner. No matter the issue—politics, world affairs, inside White House gamesmanship—Nancy had his back. She and I tangled a time or two, and she could be a complicated person, but I always knew—even when we disagreed—that her motives were pure. It was never about her. It was about her beloved Ronnie. And for that she had my utmost respect.
—President George H.W. Bush
April 20, 2017
Introduction
One of the hardest things I ever had to do was to tell Nancy Reagan I was leaving the White House. After working for her for more than four years as her press secretary, I reluctantly decided it was time to leave government service and to return to a more normal life, if that’s the right way to describe the public relations business. My government service over those four years had involved so much sacrifice and inconvenience. Not for me; for my husband and children. Because my schedule as press secretary was subject to change at a moment’s notice, we, my husband and I, realized that for four years we had never been able to entertain our friends. I missed many of my children’s school activities, but they missed their mother being at home at night, making dinner and talking over the day. It felt like the right time to say goodbye.
Still, it was difficult to give the news to the First Lady, with whom I had worked so closely and whom I had come to know and admire greatly.
We were standing in the middle of the private living room in the residence when I blurted out my news with tears in my eyes. I told her how much it hurt to leave. “Thank you, Mrs. Reagan,” I said, “for allowing me the honor of working for you.” She walked up next to me and hugged me. We talked for a while and she suggested it was high time I started calling her “Nancy.” I would do so for the next thirty years.
The story of how I came to be Nancy Reagan’s White House press secretary is one of happenstance, Irish luck, and a well-connected boss.
I grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, the second of five children. My dad was a communications attorney in DC; my mother was a traditional homemaker. In 1960, after graduating from Falls Church High, I was off to college at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where I majored in journalism—the who, what, when, where, and why school of journalism—and then began my career working at various public relations agencies. That was work I loved. I married and divorced; by 1979 I was back in Falls Church with two wonderful children, ages six and nine.
Two years later, two major developments changed my life. I married a wonderful fellow named Bill Tate and Nancy Reagan gave me a job.
Bob Gray headed up the Hill and Knowlton Washington office where I worked. He became communications director of the Reagan Bush campaign, taking several staff members with him to join the effort while I stayed behind to run a large portion of our business. The only political work I did was early in the primaries when I made evening calls as a volunteer at the phone bank asking for donations to Texas governor John Connally’s campaign for the presidency.
After Ronald Reagan won the election in 1980, Bob Gray called and asked me to send him a copy of my résumé. He was aware of a position for which he felt I was well qualified. He said he couldn’t tell me what it was but that it was right up my alley. The next thing I knew, within hours, I was asked to be at Blair House that evening at 6:00 p.m. I had walked by Blair House, the official White House guesthouse, too many times to count but had never been inside. It was and is on Pennsylvania Avenue, across the street from the White House.
In between that call and my arrival, I got dressed in a navy-blue suit and realized that the only nice heels I had were a mess. Off to the shoe repair shop where I begged the repairman to shine them while I waited.
When I checked in with the receptionist at Blair House, she motioned for me to sit down and told me someone would come for me shortly. I began noticing people I’d just seen on television walking through that room—General Alexander Haig, who had been appointed secretary of state, and National Security Advisor Dick Allen. The room itself was a lovely old-fashioned parlor, and I started thinking about how this house had fun
ctioned as the White House for a period of time when Harry Truman was president while he was having the now famous Truman balcony installed on the south side of the White House. And the attempt on his life while he was there.
After a wait of about fifteen minutes, Peter McCoy—Nancy’s first and by my measure best chief of staff—came out to meet me, introduced himself, and ushered me upstairs to a second-floor room. I had figured out the potential job must be the press secretary job by the time I met Nancy. Bob Gray had told me that I would be meeting Nancy Reagan and that the job was in the East Wing. I had read the negative press coverage she received about wanting the Carters to move out of the White House early capped off by a story that she slept with a “tiny little gun” when Ronnie was out of town. I remember wondering if this would be an impossible job.
There she was, Nancy Reagan, in real life, standing waiting for me. She was, I recall, wearing a green wool dress. After greeting me, she said, “I have been looking forward to meeting you after reading your résumé.” I said, “I am thrilled to be here and to have the chance to meet you in person.”
We sat and managed to have a good discussion—I kept my shaky hands under my legs for most of the meeting—and she told me then she wanted to find a way to become involved in the youth drug abuse issue. She asked me to tell her about my experience and the clients I’d had. As I look back on that meeting, which lasted less than an hour, I would describe her as reserved; I could tell she was listening carefully to whatever I said and evaluating me.
I do remember wondering if drug abuse was the right issue for her—I thought perhaps it was too dark for a First Lady. What drew her to this cause? And wondering whether she could have any credibility in discussing it. Had she ever confronted drug abuse in her own family? I wanted to ask her so many questions but I held my tongue. As I took my leave I said to her, “Mrs. Reagan, it has been a pleasure to meet you and if I can do anything for this exciting new administration, I would be honored.” She smiled and simply said, “Thank you so much for coming.”
She pointedly never mentioned exactly what job she was talking with me about which really confused me; I left wondering why we didn’t get down to brass tacks. I assumed my chances for the job were slim, not having worked on the Reagan campaign, so I was pleasantly surprised when Peter McCoy followed up and asked me to meet with a few other people. And I learned the reason for the lack of specificity in my conversation with Nancy. She had initially hired a society reporter, Robin Orr, from California to be her press secretary. It was not a good fit. When Nancy realized she needed someone who was more familiar with politics and the DC press, she had decided to replace her. She had not yet notified Robin and didn’t want her to find out about her replacement without advance notice. On the other hand, she knew it was important to have a successor lined up before the news broke.
The following week, at her request, I met individually with Mike Deaver, the much-heralded Reagan aide; Tish Baldridge, the delightful former social secretary to Jackie Kennedy; Nancy Reynolds, the personable Reagan staffer from California who became head of the Bendix Corporation’s Washington office, and Jim Brady, the “Bear” who was just named President Reagan’s press secretary. Nancy and Tish were helping Mrs. Reagan assemble her staff during the transition. All those meetings were at Blair House, except the meeting with Jim, which was at the Transition Office.
The day I met Jim—and instantly became a member of his fan club—he told me the process had narrowed to two people and that he was voting for me. That was apparently what tipped the scale in my favor because that night Nancy called and offered me the position. I accepted immediately because by then I had thought through the pros and cons and decided I wanted the job. She said it would be announced on Monday. It was ten days before the inauguration. The Washington Post had other plans, however. I was awakened by a late-night call on Saturday evening; Elisabeth Bumiller wanted me to confirm that I was going to be Nancy Reagan’s press secretary. I refused to confirm it and the Post printed their story anyway. I never did learn who their sources were. But I called the Transition Office to give them a heads-up on the call.
On Monday I made my way to the Transition Office and found Barbara Walters sitting next to my desk. She’d traveled to Washington because she wanted to be the first reporter to ask for and get the first interview with Nancy Reagan. I was impressed and I lobbied on her behalf; I considered her one of the best news reporters in the business. She didn’t get the first interview, but she did get an interview. You may recall her famous question: “Mrs. Reagan, if you were a tree, what kind of a tree would you be?”
While Barbara and I were talking that first day, a secretary handed me a pile of about a hundred call slips from reporters around the world. As soon as she left, I began the grueling job of returning each of those calls. It took the better part of the week to catch up with the backlog. From that day through all my years at the White House, I returned every call before I went home at night. The only exceptions to that rule were two: I did not return calls from the National Enquirer or Kitty Kelley.
Those first days at the Transition Office were exhausting, both physically and mentally. I vividly recall driving home and throwing myself into bed, wondering if I would ever get things under control. Little did I realize at the time that as the years passed Nancy Reagan would play a central role in my life, not just as my “boss” but ultimately as my friend and confidante.
And then, on Inauguration Day, we walked into the White House for the first time. My first White House friend, Jim Brady, took me under his wing from the start. He and Larry Speakes, his deputy and my former colleague at Hill and Knowlton, invited me to sit in on the West Wing Press Office’s daily 8:00 a.m. meeting. This ensured that the two separate press operations—East and West—never stepped on each other’s events. It seemed like such a basic management decision; I was surprised to hear it was the first time East and West press secretaries met daily to coordinate their schedules. Jim was an enormous help to me in winning a number of internal power struggles and he was a formidable ally. For instance, in the first few weeks, I went to Jim after running into resistance to my media plan for our first official state dinner. A social secretary had overstepped her authority and changed my carefully developed “photo ops” for the press who would cover it. Jim took one look at the inappropriate changes and pushed me toward Mike Deaver’s office while muttering to himself, “What in the ‘blank’ do they think we have these dinners for?…They are for the press.” That was his direct way of saying that these events were organized to convey to the rest of the world the significant relationship each guest country had with the United States. We needed the press coverage to achieve important diplomatic objectives. Jim helped me get my plan returned to its original order and I became his biggest fan. And could that man make chili.
Just a few years ago I was honored to speak at Jim’s memorial; I will mourn his loss to the day I die. What a magnificent human being. Did I mention he was the chili king of Washington?
Before I even became familiar with all the staff and their offices in the White House, Nancy’s schedule quickly filled up with events and travels. I was expected to travel with her if she had any public events on the schedule. We spent hours talking about our experiences, our plans. She used to poke fun at me about all the time I spent on the plane doing needlepoint. She asked, “What do you do with all the things you’ve made?” I told her she was next on the list to get a needlepoint present. I also told her I loved needlepoint because it helped you think in an orderly fashion; and almost always I was thinking through the next media event as I sewed. I was “embroidering” that explanation.
When I think about it, I realize that seldom a day went by without our talking on the phone if not in person. And it was unusual not to talk multiple times each day. Once, as my family and I enjoyed a vacation week at Stone Harbor, New Jersey, in a beach house without a phone—remember, this w
as the early ’80s and no one had cell phones until years later—the local police drove up to our cottage in a marked police car and told me to call the White House. I walked a block to the nearest phone booth to talk with her. I often wondered what the neighbors must have thought when they saw me more than once in that phone booth.
Over all the years I knew her, I never considered writing a book about Nancy Reagan.
I did receive occasional publishing offers for a few years after I left the White House; I refused those requests because I felt strongly that to do my job properly, Nancy had to entrust me with a good deal of personal information. That information belonged to her, not to me. I also felt that she had not finished the “story” of her life and she still had many years of history to make. But I changed my mind the year after I said one last painful goodbye to her at her memorial service in California on March 11, 2016, five days after her death.
At that service so many friends gathered and we talked about our times with Nancy and how different she was from the caricature created by the press. I wish all Americans could have known her as I did. This book is my personal effort to try to convey the real, substantial, thoughtful woman I knew and whose friendship I valued deeply. I realized after her death I had so many memories that would be lost to history if I didn’t put pen to paper.
This book is filled with visuals that I think the reader will enjoy. When you work at the White House, you seldom think of the historic value of the ceremonies you witnessed and the documents you dropped carelessly onto your desk afterward; you’re always too busy, going in so many different directions. I was even surprised to find so many handwritten notes from her all these years later. And wonderful pictures. I was part—a small part, but a part—of that history. And the Nancy Reagan I knew has never been adequately described.