by Sheila Tate
Every December 25 during my years as her press secretary, I intruded on the presidential Christmas by calling to coax Nancy into giving me some good information about President and Mrs. Reagan’s holiday. I would have a checklist in front of me: What did Nancy give Ronnie and vice versa? What members of the family were there? What was the menu for Christmas dinner? For the media, who were duty bound to report as many details as possible, no morsel was too small.
Since their days as young parents in California the Reagans had spent every Christmas Eve with their good friends Charlie and Mary Jane Wick. During the presidency the couples celebrated at the Wicks’ Watergate apartment, and later at their home in DC. Their tradition was that a different person dressed as Santa every year, so I needed to know who played the part.
The Reagans always celebrated Christmas Day at the White House, rather than at Camp David or in California, because they wanted their protective detail to be able to spend Christmas with their families. They would leave for California the next day.
After I squeezed every bit of information out of Nancy, she returned to Christmas dinner and I briefed the wire services. Once that obligation was fulfilled, I was able to turn my attention to my own family Christmas. The press wasn’t interested in my Christmas but my kids certainly were.
At first it was not easy to convince the Reagans of the import of my inquiries, but after seeing how the details were covered by news media across the country and realizing Americans really do like to know about their president’s Christmas, they accepted my intrusions.
* * *
Whenever I find myself beginning to feel overwhelmed by all the work that goes into planning for our family Christmas, I remember what Nancy Reagan faced each year at the White House and how beautifully and graciously she handled the details.
In the first year, 1981, Christmas began with Nancy accepting delivery of a massive Christmas tree at 10:00 a.m. on December 2. Every year a different state is honored to provide the White House with its tree; and it always arrives at the North Portico in a horse-drawn wagon.
Once the tree arrived, the White House was closed to tours while professional florists and young people from a nearby drug treatment program decorated the tree. Nancy joined in the fun, helping hang ornaments.
On the afternoon of December 6, the Reagans stood with the White House social aides for their annual Christmas photo before they left for the traditional Kennedy Center Honors. You may have watched this wonderful program on television. The Reagans hosted an afternoon reception at the White House to kick off the “Honors” and they never missed going to this event where awardees from every aspect of the arts are honored. Nancy always said it felt like the official beginning of Christmas.
On December 7, at 11:00 a.m. Nancy unveiled the Christmas decorations for the press. The chef made a wonderful gingerbread house that graced the State Dining Room while the tree filled the Blue Room. Then at 2:00 p.m., the Reagans posed again with the tree for Newsweek magazine.
The afternoon of December 8 was devoted to an interview with Newsweek and more Christmas-themed photography. At 6:30 p.m. that same day the Reagans welcomed White House volunteers to a holiday reception to personally thank them for all their work during the year.
On Monday, December 14, Nancy hosted a Christmas party for the children of the diplomatic corps, an annual event much anticipated by those families.
That evening, the Reagans hosted the first of two back-to-back Christmas parties for the media. This broke from the tradition of one party. The change gave rise to the rumor that there must be an A list party and a B list party. Who says the White House press corps isn’t a bit paranoid? The change was made only because the event had grown so large it wasn’t fun for anyone. By breaking it into two events, media got to spread out around the State Floor, go through the official receiving line, and have drinks and wonderful food while enjoying the decor. We took our final guest list in alphabetical order and invited every other person (and guest) to alternate parties. And in a number of cases I had to explain that to a few members of the always suspicious media.
Ten days to go! On December 15 Nancy hosted a holiday party specifically for deaf children in the East Room and later that night we held the second press Christmas party, hopefully putting to permanent rest the rumor about one party being better than the other.
At 11:00 a.m. on December 16, I took the dean of the press corps, Helen Thomas of UPI, up to the private residence for an interview with Nancy and, what she was really after, a large version of that year’s White House Christmas card. Helen collected them for years.
On December 17, President and Mrs. Reagan lit the national Christmas tree at the annual Pageant of Peace ceremony on the Ellipse near the Washington Monument. That moment was televised across the country. An hour later they held a Christmas reception for the Secret Service.
The calendar for December 20 shows the Reagans going to an 11:00 a.m. church service. Early afternoon they taped a television program with Young American Artists at the White House, followed by attending a party for their senior staff. Christmas was still five days away.
On Monday, December 21, Nancy invited her East Wing staff to the residence for what became an annual Christmas party. That was the last official event of the week.
The Reagans never seemed tired. They both seemed to know how important these social events were to folks who had worked hard all year and how much pride everyone felt in bringing their families to meet the president and First Lady at the gloriously decorated White House.
* * *
I haven’t even mentioned the Christmas cards yet. The Reagans, like all modern-day presidential families, sent out thousands of Christmas cards—in the range of sixty thousand. The master list, as I recall, was kept by folks at the Republican National Committee. The RNC also footed the bill for the annual mass mailing. The Christmas cards were always made in the USA and every year that I remember, Gibson and Hallmark—the only two American greeting card companies left—fought hard for the honor to make the president’s Christmas card. I was thrilled to be given the enlarged versions of all eight of the Reagan cards.
The first is still my favorite. Jamie Wyeth painted the back of the White House at night after a blanket of snow had fallen (entitled “Christmas Eve at the White House”) with only one light on. It was Nancy’s dressing room light where I could picture her wrapping last-minute gifts.
My second favorite was their 1984 card, also by Wyeth. It was the front of the White House in snow at Christmas with meandering paw prints of a barely discernible squirrel making his way to the majestic North Portico. I suspect it was a nod from the artist to President Reagan’s daily ritual of leaving acorns outside the Oval Office every morning for our resident squirrels.
For their second card, artist James Steinmeyer, a young illustrator known particularly for his interiors, was selected to paint Nancy’s favorite, the Red Room. When I look at it, I honestly feel like I am standing there in that beautiful room.
In 1983 the Green Room was the focus, this time honoring New York illustrator Mark Hampton with the commission. His work is watercolors in fine detail. To me, it’s magical.
The Blue Room was painted by Thomas William Jones for the 1985 card—again with incredible detail. Jones was asked to paint the cards for the next three years, featuring the East Room in 1986 where your eye is drawn to the Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington. For the 1987 card, the artist moved into the historic State Dining Room where Abraham Lincoln pensively surveys the room. The last Reagan card in 1988 is also by Jones. It features the cross hall where guests arriving at the North Portico enter the State Floor. Here, in this hall, the Marine Corps band plays and guests dance at the end of the evening after a memorable state dinner. I once watched Princess Diana dancing there with the president.
Every year I’d ask Nancy which card she liked best. She just
smiled and said she loved them all. Though I think she had to have loved that first card best.
For the rest of my years in Washington, whenever I drove by the back of the White House, I’d glance up at that dressing room window and remember those Christmases.
* * *
One Christmas—1984—stands out as the best.
Amie Garrison’s parents were desperate. Time was running out for their five-year-old daughter, Amie, who was unlikely to be alive on Christmas without a new liver.
Dr. Tom Starzl from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center called Nancy to tell her about the urgent need to find a liver for this child. Nancy knew Tom because her father, neurosurgeon Loyal Davis, had been involved in Starzl’s early surgical training. In fact, Dr. Starzl said he learned more about surgery from Loyal Davis in three months at Northwestern than he thought possible. He called Nancy and, as only she could, the First Lady set the wheels in motion for an incredible ten days.
Nancy Reagan invited the Garrisons to bring Amie to the White House on December 10, 1984, when she was scheduled to take the press corps on a tour of the Christmas decorations.
She surprised the press when she wheeled in a tiny little girl whose skin was a deep yellow and introduced her to the media. Amie helped Nancy put ornaments on the tree while cameras flashed. Nancy explained to the press the urgent need to find a liver for this child. She knew the story would become the centerpiece of their coverage and attract a great deal of attention.
Ten days later, thanks to the massive, worldwide publicity, a donor liver was found in Canada. But the University of Pittsburgh’s operating rooms were booked solid.
The team of Starzl and Reagan kept the pressure on. Dr. Starzl called Dr. John Fordtran, chief of internal medicine at Baylor in Dallas, and said he wanted to come to Baylor to perform the transplant. Starzl had been working with Baylor to set up a transplant center there, but it was several months away from its scheduled opening under the leadership of Baylor’s Dr. Göran Klintmalm.
For Baylor the stakes could not have been higher, but after heavy debate there was 100 percent agreement that Amie’s life was at stake and they would respond accordingly. Then it got even more complicated. Dr. Starzl had to call on Nancy to help his team, sitting on an airport tarmac in Canada with the donor liver on ice, to get their plane cleared to take off. Done. Then the White House had to intervene again to get them cleared for priority landing at Love Field in Dallas. Done. Time was of the essence.
I talked with both Amie and her father about the experience.
Gerry Garrison, Amie’s dad, knows his daughter would not be here, alive and well thirty-four years later, with three children of her own, had Dr. Starzl and Nancy Reagan not worked so hard to save her life. He said the Garrisons were sitting on a plane waiting to take off for Pittsburgh when they heard the news that the surgery was being moved to Dallas. The surgery itself took sixteen hours. Amie’s dad said the waiting was the hardest. Waiting for a liver; waiting for the surgery to take place. He said for so long “we waited, we hoped, we wished, we prayed” for Amie to get a liver.
Amie was transported from Dallas back to Pittsburgh for a recovery period, and while they were there Amie’s parents met with the parents of a three-year-old boy who had died in an auto accident; it was his liver that was giving Amie a chance to live.
The Garrisons grieved with the Canadian parents who’d lost their son. Amie, the center of all this attention, says she was “too young” and too sick to remember any of the drama that swirled around her.
The impact of Nancy’s personal intervention was profound. When you can help people save lives, people never forget. They know you care. You are also changed in meaningful ways. Nancy Reagan, First Lady, saved lives. I think it really changed her.
Dr. Starzl died March 4, 2017, a year after Nancy passed away. I’d left an email message for him a week before hoping I could talk to him about Amie and Nancy. Several days later I read his obituary; that same day an email reply popped up under his name. I was startled to see Tom Starzl’s name there in my in-box and I looked at it a few moments before opening it. Of course, it was from his office assistant making sure I knew about his passing. But for just a moment, I couldn’t help hoping it was from him.
All I could think about as I gathered the material for this story was that the good doctor and the determined First Lady had been quite a team. Nancy’s dad, the exacting surgeon Loyal Davis, would be proud of them both. Lives well lived.
10
The Art Lover
The eclectic list of performers who graced the White House during the eight Reagan years is thirty-five pages long, and every page sparkles with the names of legends. And Nancy was the artistic “engine” that drove the glittering entertainment in the Reagan White House.
The legendary artists ranged from Abracadabra, the magician who performed for the Diplomatic Children’s Party, to violinist Pinchas Zukerman and his then wife, Eugenia, on the flute who performed at the state dinner for Pakistan.
Here is a small sample of the dazzling array of performers who graced the Reagan White House:
Eddie Albert, June Allison, Bea Arthur
Burt Bachrach, Pearl Bailey, the Beach Boys, Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, George Burns
Perry Como
Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Pete Fountain
The Gatlin Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, Mickey Gilley, Benny Goodman, Robert Goulet
Gene Kelly
Peggy Lee, Rich Little
Johnny Mathis, Zubin Mehta, Robert Merrill, Liza Minnelli
Bob Newhart
Bobby Short, Beverly Sills, Frank Sinatra
Mr. T, Frank Tate
Dionne Warwick, Andy Williams
All the magnificent military bands
You’ll see the name “Frank Tate” right after Mr. T on the list of artists. Frank happens to be my dear brother-in-law who is an accomplished bassist, playing for many years with Pearl Bailey and then Bobby Short at the Carlyle Hotel. It was a thrill for the Tate family every time he performed at the White House while I was working there.
Nancy was so proud of the willingness of all these performers to give their time and talent to entertain at the nation’s house. And she loved the diversity of the performing arts represented on the White House stage.
* * *
The popular PBS program In Performance at the White House was one of Nancy’s favorites. Many of the stars of the program, who used the White House as their stage, were part of the Young American Artists in Performance at the White House, a four-part series taped in the East Room.
Nancy Reagan was genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of bringing together some of the great maestros of our time and some of our nation’s most promising young artists. In opening remarks before one of these performances, Nancy said she knew “no better or more enjoyable way to emphasize that the White House is the national home of all Americans than through a series of performances by young artists here in the East Room.”
I came across one letter addressed to President Reagan that expresses beautifully the widespread appreciation Americans had for the Young American Artists in Performance series. It was dated Christmas Eve 1981.
Dear President Reagan,
I just listened to your White House program with Beverly Sills and her young singers. Thank you so much for making it possible for us to listen to that beautiful program. I cried it was so wonderful. And your nice speech afterwards, and the Christmas carols honoring our Lord were grand. I rejoiced to hear it.
You will no doubt get many letters, and some of great importance, but I want to add my small voice of approval of what you are attempting to do for our Country. I am behind you all the way in words and prayers. We need men like you, as the poet says: “Men, sun crowned, who stand above the crowd in public duty and in private thinking.”
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The press also enjoyed covering these musical programs at the White House. It is amazing how those steely-eyed political reporters became starry-eyed groupies in the presence of the great entertainers. I vividly recall wire service reporters Helen Thomas and Maureen Santini, along with Donnie Radcliffe of the Washington Post, getting all giggly when they were able to talk with Perry Como and Rock Hudson.
Both Nancy and the president looked forward to the entertainment. Nancy usually slipped into the East Room the afternoon of a scheduled program when the entertainers were rehearsing. I recall one time when Roberta Flack was rehearsing. Nancy stood in the Red Room next door with one door ajar so she could listen without disturbing Roberta.
When Sinatra came to the White House, he never wanted to be present when media were around. He simply didn’t trust them and definitely did not want to talk with them. He was the polar opposite of Perry Como, who loved talking with everyone. Nancy and the president loved having Sinatra as their resource for picking entertainment; he had, as you can imagine, significant clout with a whole range of entertainers.
I always provided the media with a guest list in advance of a state dinner. Early in the evening, as guests were arriving, they came in through the Diplomatic Reception Room where a harpist played music to welcome them. Then they had to walk past a long rope line of reporters and cameras. If you were a senator or congressman or a member of the senior staff at the White House, you seldom even got asked a question. Occasionally someone would snap a picture. But if a big name baseball player came through, as occasionally happened, at least six male reporters would whip out a baseball and ask for his autograph, just like kids.