by Sheila Tate
When we got back to Washington, Nancy wanted to know all about Sinatra’s apartment and I described it. She was skeptical.
Just a few days later, the same Laxalt aide called and asked if I knew about a request from the Sands to the Nevada Gaming Commission to move a slot machine to Frank Sinatra’s apartment during the visit of the First Lady. He explained he’d been alerted by the commission and that the request would necessarily be made public the next day according to Nevada law.
My life flashed before me—all thirty-two years. I envisioned the Washington Post headline “Nancy Plays Slots in Sinatra’s Las Vegas Pad” and heaven only knows what the headline writers at the New York Post would create.
I assured the Senate aide that this was a misunderstanding and he assured me that he would take care of canceling the request.
When we arrived at Sinatra’s apartment, Nancy walked through the living room directly into the bedroom I’d described to her.
And luckily, to my great relief, there was no slot machine in sight.
* * *
I had forgotten (or blocked from memory) how detailed the plans were for every trip until I came upon a number of “trip books,” handed out at the start of every trip as we got on the plane at Andrews Air Force Base.
Here is an example of the detailed planning that went into a relatively straightforward First Lady trip to New York City on October 11 and 12, 1983:
• On October 11 we were to meet at the Ad Council offices to review the antidrug ad campaign the Ad Council had asked Needham, Harper & Steers Ad Agency to recommend.
• We were to arrive at the Ad Council’s front door at precisely 1:25 p.m. for an initial meeting.
• We were to leave there at 2:45 p.m. to travel to the Carlyle Hotel where we would arrive at 3:00 p.m. to remain overnight.
• On Wednesday, October 12, at 5:50 a.m. we would depart en route to the ABC Studios.
• Ten minutes later we would arrive.
• At 9:15 a.m. we would retrace our steps and return to the hotel.
• In between, Nancy spent an entire two-hour program on Good Morning America, which was devoted to her Just Say No campaign.
• Back at the hotel, Nancy goes to a private luncheon with friends, leaving directly from there to LaGuardia and we are all back at the White House at 4:15 p.m.
The trip book provides a TAB A, the seating chart for the meeting at the Ad Council. Mrs. Reagan was seated with a former resident of Phoenix House, the drug treatment center, to her right and the mother of an addicted child to her left. Six representatives for Needham, Harper & Steers were there with their creative recommendations. The president of the Ad Council and the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as well as the vice president of public relations for New York Life, were also there. Just Say No was born, and that trip book was eighty pages long.
During my tenure as Nancy’s press secretary I traveled far and wide with the Reagans. Several memories from our travels through China stand out in my mind.
At one point on a China trip we were staying at the Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai. Thankfully, only for one night. In 1984, Chinese hotels were not up to the standards of the Western world. I shared a four-bedroom suite with three other women. We quickly discovered we had other guests. Cockroaches. Big cockroaches. As soon as you turned out the light, armies of roaches came marching in. The four of us stayed up most of the night sitting together in the common living room in long robes, towels on our heads, and socks on our feet with the lights on.
The trip came not long after we’d entertained Mr. T at the White House when he played Santa. He gave us a huge pile of Mr. T car air fresheners as a gift. I had brought some of those on the China trip. We hung them all over our rooms at the roach palace, wondering how long it would take our hosts to figure out what the strange hanging items represented. I like to think it boosted Mr. T’s ratings in China.
I do know his visit created lots of excitement at the White House mess when several of us took Mr. T, playing Santa Claus, to lunch the day he visited. Word spread quickly that Mr. T was in the mess and Vice President Bush showed up with a White House photographer. That same night I dropped by the vice president’s annual Christmas party at his residence on Observatory Circle. There in the foyer for all to see was a framed picture of George H.W. Bush with Mr. T.
One morning during our stay in China, Nancy called me to the Reagans’ suite. She handed me a stack of paper and whispered to me, “Please have these burned.” I looked down and quickly ascertained what she’d given me. So I whispered back, “Mrs. Reagan, these are just AP wire stories.” In other words, news items that had already been circulated worldwide. She replied, “Please, just do it.” I accomplished my assignment. I have no idea why.
We also traveled to Xi’an to see the fantastic Terracotta Warriors, first unearthed only ten years earlier. Excavation of this enormous site continues to this day. When we were there, I recall there was a dustup between our team and the Chinese over what airplane the press would take. They insisted we fly China Air and we capitulated. It was a no-frills flight.
Luckily, the president and Nancy were on Air Force One.
At one point during the flight I slipped into the bathroom. As I was washing my hands I noticed a pocket-sized comb sealed in cellophane. It was quite pretty, with a multicolored floral design. It looked so “occidental.” I confess it left the restroom in my possession because I thought it would be a neat keepsake for Rusty, the volunteer in our office back at the White House who answered the phones and helped with the mail.
When I got home and gave it to Rusty, she opened it and we read the stamped “Made in the USA” imprint on the back. The Chinese have a great sense of humor.
On a presidential trip to Japan, there was a reception to which the staff was invited. Elaine Crispin, Nancy’s personal secretary who later succeeded me in the second term as press secretary, attended with me. There was a formal tea ceremony that was quite impressive—artistic and graceful. As the beautiful woman who conducted the ceremony handed me and Elaine our cups, we leaned down to drink and Elaine whispered to me, “This looks like the bottom of my fish tank.” Her timing was less than impeccable because at that precise moment I had taken a sip and instantly spit it out my nose and mouth in reaction to her hilarious comment. So much for ceremony. And so much for our diplomatic graces.
On the other hand, Nancy went to visit a shrine on that trip. As is customary, we all took our shoes off upon arrival. She was going to speak, so the Japanese made sure to have a translator there. When Nancy left the building, she realized her shoes were inside the shrine and she sent Elaine back to get them. The translator came to me to ask if that was Mrs. Reagan who came back to pick up the shoes. I told her no, the person who came back was Mrs. Reagan’s personal assistant. She looked at me, giggled, and said, “You know, you Americans all look alike to us.” So I guess everything evened out.
On one of our numerous presidential trips to London, we were staying at the Churchill Hotel. Our press operation on the hotel’s first floor was in the midst of being broken down and moved to our next stop. I was paged to call Mrs. Reagan so I went into the cavernous room to find a phone. No one else was in the huge, cavernous room but me.
I found a working phone, got connected, and sat down at a long press table while we talked. A peculiar-looking fellow walked in, came toward me smiling, leaned down, and picked up the tablecloth so he could look under the table. At first I assumed he was there to break down the room and disable that last working phone. But he kept looking up at me and smiling, and then back to looking under the table. I saw no need to alarm Nancy, but I definitely sensed something weird was going on so I started looking for someone to pass by who could help me. Finally, one of our Secret Service agents walked by. I caught his eye and pointed down, all the time talking to Nancy. As the agent walked
toward me, my strange visitor took off running, the agent in hot pursuit. Later that day I got a call from Scotland Yard asking me if I wanted to press charges against the gentleman, a known pedophile who liked looking at ladies’ feet. I demurred. And I beat feet out of London.
The international trips were memorable, but we did most of our traveling in the good old USA. On one trip to Los Angeles, we stopped in Phoenix as usual so Nancy could spend one night with her mother. I took advantage of the sunny weather and went out to the pool at the Biltmore where I was staying. I was paged and the person on the phone looking for me was Frank Sinatra. You should have seen how the folks lying around the pool looked up when they heard the page. He was calling from Los Angeles about some concern he had with arrangements for a state dinner proposal coming from the White House. But, for one short moment, all eyes were on me!
15
Protecting Nancy
Whenever Nancy left the confines of the White House it was necessary that she travel with security. Her lead agent, George Opfer, held that position for six years. He remembers getting the call from John Simpson, head of the Secret Service, a day or two after the 1980 election telling him he was being assigned to protect Nancy. Off he flew to Los Angeles, where a few days later he found himself meeting Nancy in the Reagans’ Pacific Palisades home. Little did he know at the time how this assignment would impact his life.
Until now George has never cooperated in any interviews about Nancy because he felt that to do his job he had to be privy to much of the Reagans’ personal life, and that the moments he’d witnessed did not belong to him. Those were my exact feelings about writing a book about Nancy until I realized there was an important story to tell that was missing from history.
George had a good relationship with his “protectee,” known by her code name “Rainbow” to her agents. She trusted him and the other agents completely, although Joe Sullivan used to jokingly complain that whenever he was in the lead position because George had the day off, Nancy would ask, “Where is George?”
When President Reagan was shot, George stayed close by Nancy’s side as she waited for word on the surgery. They sat together in the hospital chapel and he handed her his handkerchief.
George reminded me of our trip to Monaco for Princess Grace’s funeral. Nancy was to stay at the palace. When she got there, she asked George where he was staying. He said he was staying at a hotel, quite a distance from the palace. She apparently made a few inquiries because George soon found himself with a room at the palace. The idea of having your lead agent several miles away was not Nancy’s idea of protection.
At another funeral back in Washington, he sat in his usual position behind her at the service, surveying the room, eyes sweeping from side to side. Unfortunately, neither George nor I are able to remember whose funeral this was. Apparently, Nancy recognized during the service that George was favoring one side over the other and that in that favored direction sat a very attractive young lady. Afterward, Nancy, with obvious amusement, asked George if his neck was stiff. She knew. And loved teasing him. We came to believe Nancy really did have eyes in the back of her head.
Without any encouragement from me, George said he would like people to know that Nancy Reagan was a “real person, a decent, caring human being.” He said, “She could spot a phony….She was a good judge of character.” There was emotion in his voice.
He went on to tell me this:
When it was time for me to be transferred from Mrs. Reagan’s detail, I had to meet with the president and Director John Simpson who advised me that I would have to speak to Mrs. Reagan. They were not going to tell her that I was leaving her security. So I met with Mrs. Reagan and she became very emotional about my departure since I’d been with her through all the good and bad days.
She wanted to make sure that the transfer was the best for my career and I was not being forced off her detail. We had numerous conversations but she only wanted what was best for me. She always said I was like a member of her family and she would call me afterwards just to see how I and my family were doing.
While I don’t know it for a fact, I suspect Nancy lobbed in a few calls to try to extend George’s service on her detail when she learned he was being rotated off in 1986. But the Secret Service has its rules. Not even Nancy Reagan could break through them.
During the Christmas holidays that year, Nancy wrote George this note as he was being reassigned:
Dear George—
I can’t believe this is the last Christmas we’ll be together—in fact I refuse to believe it—like Scarlett, I’ll think about it tomorrow.
I’ll miss you terribly as you know but there are lots of memories—as you said, some were peaks, some valleys. And they all stand out vividly in my mind. From the day we sat in the hospital and after handing me your handkerchief you said “all we can do now is pray”—and that began everything—I’ve depended on you so much for so many things. There’s going to be a large void in my life but I’m trying to be a big girl about it and if this is what you want and it will be good for you—okay—but I don’t like it!
There are so many things I have to thank you for—and I do—but if I stop to think about them you’ll have to give me your handkerchief again—
Bless you and Merry Christmas,
Rainbow
This was in reference to a note she sent him shortly after the assassination attempt where she wrote: “Thank you, George, as always, for coming to my rescue—here it is back all cleaned and pressed.” It ended with a smiley face. The handkerchief was enclosed.
George also shared with me the beautiful note Nancy sent him dated January 29, 1989. In that note, she wrote about his presence when she arrived in Washington, and then at the helicopter to see her and President Reagan off to California when they left office. She wanted him to remember that he was with her through the good and the bad times.
After he retired from the Secret Service, George stayed in touch with Nancy mainly by telephone. He also visited her at her residence over the years and sometimes they would go out for lunch. I can picture Rainbow and George sitting in the dining room of the Bel-Air Hotel reminiscing about all the old times. I bet they gossiped a bit. And maybe even laughed about how Secret Service director Simpson and President Reagan refused to be the ones to break the bad news to Nancy when George was being transferred.
George sent me an email saying he believes Nancy and President Reagan would be honored by my book. I think she’d be most pleased that he made known his devotion to “Rainbow.”
* * *
I do not remember a single agent assigned to the First Lady’s detail who didn’t become part of our extended East Wing family.
Because I was frequently on television in my role as press secretary, I learned quickly the danger associated with that chore. One very disturbed man kept showing up at my home in the belief that I could get him a job on the National Security Council. How bizarre is that? He’d seen me on television. The Secret Service alerted the local police to the problem and they drove by frequently to check things out. My children were terrified of him. My husband was so concerned he insisted on sleeping with a weapon at his bedside. Late one evening I turned into our street to see at least six police cars with lights flashing in front of my house. They had received a call from a neighbor about this fellow and knew I was his target; they had him down on the ground when I pulled into my driveway. The Fairfax County, Virginia, legal apparatus took over and the last I heard he was being held for mental observation, for which I am truly grateful.
Shortly after the March 30, 1981, assassination attempt, when I had been on TV during the press conference after the president’s surgery, a real sicko from Little Rock, Arkansas, began calling and demanding to speak with me, saying he’d seen me on television. He even sent flowers. Betsy, our executive assistant, was being driven to distraction. He called one day and said, “I am i
n the East Wing and on my way up.” That concerned me a lot and I called the Secret Service to report this. They fanned out all over the White House and the grounds and then came to see me, asking me to tell them the whole story. We told them the name he used and mentioned the flowers. Joe Sullivan asked if we knew where the flowers came from and as luck would have it, we had the card that came with the flowers. The Secret Service traced them back to the sender.
Several weeks later, Joe came to see me to tell me that they had just had a visit with this fellow, a “happily married man” by the way, who would not be bothering me again.
It was one of the few times Joe was wrong. Several years later Nancy traveled to Little Rock for an event, which was publicized in advance. Once our team arrived at the hotel, we happened to change the rooms assigned to us to create a more logical arrangement. Fortunately, the hotel records still had me in the original room. That same sick man spent the night calling the original room number, asking for me. How creepy is that?
Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Within days of the first Reagan inaugural, we spent a day in the Red Room working with the professionals from Vogue shooting a cover photo of Nancy in her inaugural gown.
Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Just before the wedding of the century—Prince Charles and Lady Diana—we dined at the American Embassy. I was there with Nancy, Peter McCoy, and Barbara Walters of NBC.
Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Nancy met regularly with her staff to plan activities. This photo was taken in the Diplomatic Reception Room during one of those sessions. Chief of staff Peter McCoy, Nancy, and me. We were probably laughing because of a joke Peter told. He had no equal.