by Sheila Tate
As I mentioned, the Gridiron Dinner is officially off the record. However, reporters pay only lip service to that rule. I knew we were guaranteed to hear broadcasters’ reports of Nancy’s performance on Sunday and to see big news stories on Monday morning.
I was under orders not to brief any media with details in advance, but I felt duty bound to make sure one White House reporter did know about the Gridiron plan. Tom DeFrank worked for Newsweek and was writing a major cover story about Nancy with which we had cooperated. It was going to be on the newsstands across the country on Monday. Newsweek normally went to the printer on Friday night in order to hit the newsstands on Monday; the Gridiron Dinner was Saturday night. If I hadn’t briefed Newsweek in advance, there was no way the reporter could include Nancy’s surprise appearance. Even then, Newsweek had to hold back on printing that edition until after her triumphant Saturday night performance to be sure its report was accurate. To have no mention of Nancy’s boffo appearance in its cover story would have been a major embarrassment for Tom and for Newsweek. I heard later that Tom DeFrank went to Mike Deaver to tell him the backstory and to make sure there would be no retribution for my decision. After it was all over and Nancy was basking in the novelty of glowing press accounts, I told her about the tensions behind the scenes. She simply rolled her eyes and told me not to give it a second thought.
And one of my most prized possessions is a White House picture of Nancy in her Gridiron wardrobe inscribed to me: “From your best dressed First Lady, Fondly, Nancy.”
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Nancy’s early experiences onstage were invaluable on a number of occasions during the Reagan years. For instance, one of the most popular prime-time sitcoms on television in the early ’80s was Diff’rent Strokes, featuring the young star Gary Coleman. The producer got in touch with us in 1982 and offered to involve Nancy in a drug education–themed program. Nancy sent me out to Hollywood ahead of her arrival to work with the writers on a script. I worked for several full days with the writers; we sat in a cottage on studio grounds as the story came to life. I faxed it back to the White House for comments; she reviewed it and made changes as well.
When Nancy got to Universal Studios, we spent an entire day on the set rehearsing and taping the show. She was a real pro. The producer had cue cards at the ready as the entire cast, including Nancy, began run-throughs of the show. She hardly needed those cue cards. The rehearsal and the taping went smoothly from start to finish.
The series was about two young African American brothers from Harlem taken in by a rich white widower. In this episode, Coleman’s character, “Arnold,” the younger brother, makes himself into an investigative reporter who finds out drugs are being sold at his elementary school. Arnold goes to the local newspaper with the story after he confirmed that one of the drug peddlers was selling “uppers, downers and goofballs.” Nancy Reagan, playing herself, happens to be in New York the day the story broke in the newspaper. After reading about it, she goes to Arnold’s home to learn the details and then goes to his school to warn the children about how dangerous these drugs are.
It was the first time any First Lady had ever actually played a substantive role in a television show and it got great ratings. This episode aired in 1983 to a very large audience, reaching millions of young people and their parents as well. By then her Just Say No campaign was in full swing and the appearance was key to introducing the initiative to the public.
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On September 14, 1982, Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco, died in a tragic car crash. Nancy went to the funeral and stayed in Grace’s apartment at the palace. I also went to the moving funeral, sitting way in the back. Then I waited for Nancy while she attended the postfuneral reception hosted by Prince Rainier on the palace lawn. It was directly behind the princess’s private apartment where my deputy, Barbara Cook Fabiani, and I waited. We were able to watch through louvered shutters on the windows and see Nancy as well as Princess Diana and others. Barbara and I were fascinated by a chaise lounge in the bedroom, which had a plaque attached noting that it was the birthing bed upon which Princess Grace delivered her babies.
Then, in March 1983, Nancy Reagan’s acting background came in handy once again when she was asked to fill in for Princess Grace. Before her death, Princess Grace had agreed to come to Washington to narrate “Carnival of the Animals,” a “grand zoological fantasy” according to its composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The occasion was a special Kennedy Center performance by the National Symphony to benefit the Musicians Pension Fund. The celebrated Mstislav Rostropovich, a world-famous Russian cellist, would conduct.
Leonard Silverstein, who over the years has chaired the National Symphony, the White House Historical Society, the National Gallery of Art among others, and his equally accomplished wife, Elaine, came up with the idea of asking the First Lady to take the stage in place of Princess Grace.
Nancy was pleased to accept and proud to fill in for Princess Grace. “I said yes because Grace was my friend,” said Nancy.
To prepare, Nancy rehearsed with Rostropovich, fondly known as “Slava,” concentrating on Ogden Nash’s tongue-twisting words like “tortley, turtley, torpor.” And “pterodactyls and brontosauruses.”
Slava brought his dog Pooks along to one of the rehearsals at the White House, according to the New York Times. On command in Russian, the dog jumped on the piano bench and began to paw the ivories. That had to be a first in the history of musical moments in the White House.
Princess Caroline and Prince Albert joined President Reagan in the presidential box for the bittersweet performance that evening.
Nancy admitted to a case of nerves at the beginning of her performance before a packed house, but said she had a strong sense that Grace was looking down on her and that feeling helped calm her.
Knowing Nancy as I did, I am quite certain that when she left us a few years ago she immediately went in search of Grace to make sure her performance passed muster.
5
Just Say No
Nancy also deserves a great deal of credit for the impact she had on young people in the ’80s with her Just Say No campaign against drugs.
—George H.W. Bush, April 20, 2017
Within days of the 1981 inauguration, Nancy’s staff, following her direction, began organizing a series of educational meetings for Nancy and her senior staff with all the interest groups surrounding the drug prevention and treatment issues at the time. The staff was not at all certain that this tough issue—a downer in our minds—was the best project for Nancy to adopt. Nancy finally put us straight. She said, “If I am going to be involved in an issue for four or even eight years, it has to be something I really care about. I care about what drugs are doing to our young people.” Case closed.
Fearless leader and project director Ann Wrobleski was in perfect sync with Nancy. She became an expert on every interest group and every aspect of the drug problem. Ann was at the table when the president’s new drug czar began to develop administration policy on the issue. She knew that if the First Lady was to lead an effective campaign, it needed to align with the president’s policies and it needed to survive beyond his presidency, independent of federal funding.
By the fall of 1981, we were ready to begin a public rollout of the campaign and Nancy was eager to get started. We hit the road, crisscrossing the country, drawing attention to the depth of the drug epidemic destroying our young people. And because of Nancy’s focus and hard work over the next seven years, countless lives were saved.
We started the campaign by traveling to visit Phoenix House, Straight, Inc., and other treatment centers around the country, where recovering addicts told Nancy their stories and listened to her talk about her personal pride in their recovery.
Everywhere we went—Dallas, Little Rock, Tampa to name a few—we took press with us. Early on the press was skeptical, figuring this was a PR initiative meant
for photo ops with no real commitment. But by the end of the first year of travel and hard work, those reporters recognized Nancy’s real commitment to the drug abuse issue and began to take her seriously.
Nancy wanted to help change youth public opinion on drug use; her goal was to push back against the “normalization” of the use of marijuana and other harmful drugs. She admired the campaign against tobacco that had convinced children to carry the antitobacco message home and pressure their parents to quit smoking. She believed instilling strong negative feelings about drugs in children at an early age would provide benefits to those children, and society, in the long run.
By late 1982 the press skepticism had gradually turned to measured admiration as they traveled with us across the country and witnessed her commitment, her focus, and the emotional way young people responded to her.
In her travels Nancy related most closely to the organically formed “parent groups” that functioned as local activists. These groups grew out of the rapidly increasing recognition that most parents were clueless about the rampant drug use among young people and, when faced with a drug-dependent child, had no idea how to get help. The parent groups were the first line of defense: they educated parents and provided support for shell-shocked parents in need of direction.
The parent groups became a vital and valuable resource for those families dealing with drug abuse. When Nancy started working with them, they were loosely organized as a countrywide federation called Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education, or PRIDE. The PRIDE organization was run primarily out of Georgia Southern University in Atlanta by a PhD named Buddy Gleason. Others, including Bill and Pat Barton and Joyce Nalepka, had helped form the National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth. They began to lobby Congress and state legislatures for appropriate regulatory action and fiscal support for treatment.
The work of the parent groups was bolstered considerably by a multimillion-dollar donation from a Gulf State prince and sent to the First Lady (which, I hasten to add, was legal at the time) and that Nancy immediately forwarded to the parent groups to make sure their work was sustainable into the future. In fact, the successor organization of the National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth—the National Family Partnership—is alive and well today. And, sadly, needed more than ever.
I vividly remember one early trip to Dallas where Nancy met with parents who were dealing with drug problems involving their own children. For them, her interest was a lifeline and their gratitude for her visit was palpable. What I remember most clearly from that meeting was how closely Nancy listened to them. The meeting was private; no reporters were present. I remember thinking that Nancy was going to surprise a lot of people when the press realized they had greatly underestimated Nancy’s resolve. And her effectiveness.
Nancy traveled thousands of miles in the United States to visit young people in treatment and give them the encouragement that comes from being praised by a First Lady. She never seemed tired. The progress she was making seemed to energize her. Even when her staff was exhausted, she never stopped moving forward.
One visit to a treatment program had a funny behind-the-scenes situation that we never forgot. At a summer camp in Arkansas, one of the young boys was chosen to present Nancy with a gift. Fortunately, the advance team of Bob Gubitosi and Barbara Cook Fabiani noticed an inked tattoo on the back of his hand. That hand would be highly visible to the TV cameras and reporters who were traveling with us. Bob grabbed his own pen and changed the “F” of a certain four-letter word to a “B.” Ever after that, we always referred to the young boy as Buck. And I sincerely hope he is well and thriving.
One day at the White House, Nancy took a call from a hysterical mother in Texas who was desperate for help for her drug-addicted son. I listened in to that call. Nancy wrote down her name and number and promised the mother she would have someone get back to her with help. She got off that call and promptly called Robbie Robinson in Dallas who ran the Texas War on Drugs group funded by Ross Perot. Robbie promised to get help for the boy the next day and Nancy said, “No, Robbie, today, not tomorrow. This lady does not need to spend one more sleepless night worrying about whether her son will live until tomorrow.” Needless to say, that young man was placed into treatment that very night. Nancy checked back with the family and at last report the young man was doing very well.
In our efforts to expand the Just Say No campaign beyond US borders, we borrowed a format used by President Nixon as part of his War on Drugs. He had brought twenty US ambassadors back to Washington to participate in a discussion of what more the United States could do globally to stop the spread of illegal drugs. His point was that the drug epidemic was a global problem and he wanted America’s diplomats on the front line. In early 1985, we organized a similar meeting with thirty US ambassadors.
The White House Office of Drug Policy was closely involved in Nancy’s Just Say No campaign and very supportive of the effort to take our program beyond our borders. Vice President George H.W. Bush was then responsible for coordinating all US government programs dealing with the enforcement of antidrug policy. He attended and spoke at the meeting as did the director of National Drug Control Policy, the attorney general, and other senior administration officials. Nancy had no trouble lining up the top talent!
The ambassadors were complimentary of Nancy’s campaign; several urged that she visit the countries to which they were accredited to draw attention to the problem and lend support to those leaders who were supportive of US efforts. After several months of sometimes heated discussion between White House, State Department, and Secret Service interests about the prospects for an overseas First Lady antidrug tour, the final answer was not no; it was NOT A CHANCE. The cocaine cartels were on the upswing and no one wanted to take responsibility for Nancy’s safety. Nancy was disappointed but she had complete faith in the Secret Service and accepted the decision.
Instead, we decided to try to bring other countries to us. In April of 1985, eighteen First Ladies from around the world—from Pakistan to Colombia to Japan to Italy—joined Nancy for a meeting in the East Room of the White House followed by a trip to Atlanta to attend the annual PRIDE conference at Georgia State University. Security was tight, protocol was strict, logistics were complex. Each of the eighteen First Ladies had her own limo but they all had to share a plane to Atlanta and back. Those First Ladies seemed to develop a bond on that trip. They had a clear understanding that programs and strategies existed that were effective in beating back drug abuse, and they seemed energized by the conference. It was a long day but more than worth it. Drug awareness education made major news around the world that day.
Nancy was committed to her campaign for all her years in the White House. In late October 1988, as the Reagan administration was drawing to a close, Nancy became the first First Lady to address the General Assembly of the United Nations. Flanked by Secretary of State George Shultz and US Ambassador to the United Nations Vernon Walters, she spoke about the challenges of drug abuse and drug awareness. She also described the shared responsibilities among countries where drugs were grown, countries through which drugs were trafficked, and countries where drugs were consumed. She cast a wide net and called all within it to action. After her speech, the First Ladies who’d met at the White House three years earlier met again to discuss their progress. Secretary Shultz said he sensed a real resolve in these ladies.
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Nancy Reagan showed herself to be very effective in using the power of the media to help save many young people from ever using drugs; she raised significant monies to help treatment and prevention programs, and to reach kids or kids in need. She helped educate First Ladies from across the globe about how to help change attitudes in their own countries.
She traveled across the country and ultimately the world working to educate kids to avoid drugs, to get treatment for those in need of it, and, perhaps every bit as significant, to r
aise awareness among parents of the peer pressure their children faced. I don’t think I am overstating when I say Nancy Reagan led her staff to create a strong public education effort to shine powerful klieg lights on a dark corner of our country and across the world where young kids were introduced to dangerous drugs by their peers and sometimes even by their parents. Her impact over more than a decade was powerful and saved many young people of that generation from the ravages of drugs.
According to the White House Council on National Drug Control Policy in 1979, almost 10 percent of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds reported using cocaine; eight years later—the Just Say No years—the number was reduced to less than 5 percent. Regarding marijuana, the twelve- to seventeen-year-olds had a dramatic drop during the same eight years from roughly 14 percent use down to 5.4 percent. And according to Gallup’s Youth Survey, the percentage of teens admitting to marijuana use continued to drop from 38 percent in 1981 to 20 percent in 1989. Those numbers certainly bolster the case that it is possible to change minds and habits on the issue of drug use if we persist.
The daily barrage of news stories about the opioid epidemic in the United States is more than discouraging. We could sure use the help of another Nancy Reagan with the platform and the courage to convince today’s young people to Just Say No.
6
Protector in Chief
March 1981. Spring was in the air. The Reagans were settling into life at the White House and we were all beginning to feel at home. The first state dinner had been beautifully executed; we had started planning the Just Say No campaign. I was busy planning media opportunities.