Lady in Red

by Sheila Tate

  There was great division in the West Wing about how to handle this issue. The very conservative policy shop at the White House had to sign off on the substance. Landon forewarned Nancy that he expected problems with some of his language since this was a major speech that would be analyzed to death; Landon told her it might very well be necessary for him to invoke her name. She understood. The use of Nancy’s name in a policy dispute was very effective. Whenever the bureaucratic infighting got too heated on the AIDS speech, Nancy’s name was invoked as “wanting it this way.” She had come to realize that sometimes she would be blamed for things she knew nothing about but, in this case, she really did “want it that way.”

  Landon also discovered that the president had never met personally with his surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, to discuss the issue of AIDS. That meeting was promptly scheduled so that the surgeon general could brief the president and help him understand the medical implications of the disease and what kind of government support was needed for research and treatment.

  Landon recalls the emotional give-and-take on the contents of that speech. Using the First Lady’s name when absolutely necessary, Landon says they were able to include language that got the president on the record saying that AIDS couldn’t be caught by casual transmission in swimming pools or by drinking water from a public fountain.

  Biographer Lou Cannon said that if the president had said this a few years earlier it would have been seen as forward-looking. Landon believes that if not for Nancy, the speech—the result of compromise and occasional invocation of Nancy’s name at crucial points—probably would have been seen as a step backward.

  The press tended to believe that Nancy was an ultraconservative who pushed her husband in the same direction. It was never true. Nancy’s politics, in truth, were based broadly on what was good for her husband. On any number of occasions, I watched senior White House officials blanch at the prospect of having to explain something to Nancy. They sensed that her extraordinarily close relationship with her husband made her very influential. Those of us who worked closely with her were often amused by the macho guys who turned into quivering jelly when meeting with her.

  Years later, when I took the better part of a year off from the private sector to work for George H.W. Bush as his 1988 campaign press secretary, I was present when Barbara said to him, “George, your staff is afraid of me.” To which he replied, “Good, keep it that way.” He knew that was just fine. Personally, I loved Barbara Bush. She was always a breath of fresh air with an incredible sense of humor.

  Later, I confess, I stooped to the practice of invoking a First Lady’s name and blamed Barbara Bush for something she knew nothing about—and worse, I knew she knew nothing about it.

  During the Gulf War, Saudi prince Khalid bin Sultan was cocommander with General Norman Schwarzkopf. The prince wrote a book, Desert Warrior, about his experience and I was retained to assist in publicizing the book in the United States. The prince had never met the former president, and the president was genuinely thrilled to invite him to Kennebunkport. The prince asked my advice on appropriate gifts. I steered him away from the suggestion that he present the former president with an AK-47 from the Highway of Death. Sounded morbid and gruesome to me. I said that was not a good idea because Mrs. Bush did not like guns. I simply made that up—blame it on Barbara. So, instead, the prince presented President Bush with a beautiful, personalized fishing rod and reel.

  The prince departed Kennebunkport after a full day of boating and fishing with the former president. President Bush took several staff and me out to dinner. I regaled the table with the story of the AK-47 and President Bush immediately asked if I could still get one for him. For his library. Long story short, I had to become a registered arms dealer; I had my own ATF agent assigned to me. To be of value to the library, the weapon had to be in working order. It was not legal to import an AK-47 in working order except under strict conditions and for historical purposes. Eventually the weapon made land at the Port of Galveston, Texas, where it was personally claimed by the curator of the Bush Library who waited on the docks for its arrival. All because I had blamed Barbara, completely unfairly, as a convenient way to say no.

  So, if you get a chance to visit the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum in College Station, Texas, perhaps you will get to see my personal AK-47 on display. If not, demand it!

  18

  No Better Friend

  Nancy Reagan had the most amazing address book. It was red leather, and it literally bulged with notes. It was formidable. Every phone number she ever wanted was in there.

  She knew how to keep in touch. Her circle of friends widened through her White House years, but she never left any of her West Coast friends behind.

  They were reluctant to call her, assuming she would be in the middle of some important meeting or event. As often as she reassured them, they hesitated to call. So she became the caller. She wanted to hear familiar voices and learn the details of their daily lives. Afternoons at the ranch were a good time to call. The president would be out chopping wood or clearing trails with Dennis LeBlanc and Barney Barnett. It was quiet.

  She called me occasionally, especially after they moved back to California. Her California friends now felt comfortable ringing her up; now she wanted to be sure not to lose touch with her Washington friends. Sometimes her calls came at really inconvenient times, like during my workday when I was billing by the hour, but I always took them. And, truth to tell, we gossiped.

  Vice President Bush used to save up jokes for his weekly lunches with President Reagan because he knew how much President Reagan enjoyed a good joke. I used to save up stories for Nancy’s calls. Her calls inevitably lasted an hour so there was a lot of saving up to do. She wanted the latest Washington gossip; news about the family, your job, any plans to travel west.

  Occasionally she had sad news to convey. It was the time in life when your friends’ health deteriorates. Sometimes she needed advice or help with some request she’d received. If she was coming to DC, she wanted to make sure you were going to be at the event.

  When my husband, Bill Tate, died suddenly of a heart attack at age fifty-seven, in 1998, she called me weekly and forced me to talk about it. So I would sit in my office with the door closed and cry to her soothing voice on the phone. She said her father had told her that grieving people really do want to talk; they are just embarrassed because they cry so much, so friends shy away from the subject because they don’t want you to cry.

  Ever since then I follow her example and encourage my friends to talk and cry. Ultimately, they begin to smile again and recall great times and funny stories.

  One time she called me to find out if I was coming to the November 9, 2007, opening of a new exhibit at the Reagan Library. I could tell she really wanted me to come. The exhibit was entitled: Nancy Reagan—A First Lady’s Style. For some reason I had not received my invitation and did not know about the event.

  So my husband and I—I had remarried in 2005—hurriedly made plans to fly to California for the opening. We were walking through the exhibit when I realized why she was so intent on my being there. Up on the wall was painted a quote from me about how a First Lady learns to take the media spotlight that shone on her and turn it around to focus on an important cause. I turned around to see her standing there smiling at me. She was honoring me with that place on the wall, and it felt like someone had just given me one million dollars.

  * * *

  Chris Wallace, one of the top newsmen in Washington, loved Nancy Reagan. It had its start in the 1940s when Mike Wallace, his dad, was in radio in Chicago. Mike enjoyed having Edie Davis, Nancy’s mother, on his show because she was funny, salty, and had a bit of a potty mouth. Years later, when Mike was covering Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California, he was surprised and pleased to find that Ronald Reagan had married Nancy Davis, Edie’s daughter, and they r
esumed a friendship.

  Chris first met Nancy in 1980 when he covered Reagan in the general election. His dad called Nancy and made the introductions, and they became friends.

  Chris recounted a story told to him by Stu Spencer, the president’s longtime political consultant. Stu sent Ed Rollins to talk to Nancy because she had received calls from friends in LA in 1984 complaining that there were no Reagan lawn signs evident anywhere. Rollins was our campaign manager. Stu told Rollins as he left for the meeting, “Don’t let her roll you. We are twenty points up.”

  When Rollins came back from the meeting, Stu took one look at him and said, “She rolled you.” Signs went up all over Los Angeles. I love that story.

  In 1985 Chris got Nancy to agree to sit for a documentary. He interviewed her at the ranch, at Camp David, and in the White House private residence. Chris said the hardest person to work with on the documentary he was doing on Nancy was Frank Sinatra. Sinatra insisted that whatever he said could not be edited; it would have to be aired in its entirety. NBC explained that was not possible because he could end up talking for three or four minutes—a lifetime in television—and they would not be able to shorten it. Sinatra was not included in the documentary. He was his own worst enemy.

  Chris found himself involved in one of the most scandalous personal issues during the presidency. He ran into Nancy Reynolds, a close friend of Nancy’s, outside the White House in mid-February 1987. She told him she had just left the First Lady in the residence and that Don Regan had just hung up on Nancy. Nancy Reynolds was shocked.

  Chris repeated the information on the news that night. He later learned that the Reagans were sitting in President Reagan’s study watching TV that same night while having dinner and they watched his broadcast. The president asked Nancy if Chris’s story was true. It was how he learned about his chief of staff’s behavior.

  Chris also recalled 1987 as the year of the “Deep Freeze.” Nancy was very upset with Chris’s coverage of the shape of the Reagan presidency, which he described as in deep trouble dealing with Iran Contra, among other issues. The president and Nancy watched Chris’s report just before guests arrived for the president’s birthday dinner. The president was unhappy and Nancy blamed Chris. She didn’t speak to him for a year.

  They made up after she was back in Los Angeles. In 1994 he took three of his four children out to Los Angeles and they all visited Nancy. The president was at the ranch. Chris still remembers his seven-year-old jumping on their bed. He and Nancy had a long talk.

  When later that year the president’s letter about his Alzheimer’s was released, Chris called the Reagan home, expecting to leave a message. Nancy picked up the phone and they talked for half an hour. She was vulnerable and open, telling him how much she had hoped these would be the golden years and now he would be robbed of all those memories.

  Above all else, Chris describes her as an attentive friend. “She was the most fun, the best company to be with. She was never looking over her shoulder searching for someone more important to talk with. All her attention was on you.”

  * * *

  George Will met Nancy Reagan before the first presidential debate. The Reagans were staying at Wexford, the Virginia estate Jackie Kennedy made famous when she used it as a place to ride. George said he was hunched over a typewriter when Nancy walked by, ruffled his hair, and said, “I see we’ve got the varsity here.” Their friendship developed from that point forward. Nancy found him to be an honest person whose opinions she came to value greatly.

  Over the next eight years, the Reagans came to dinner at the Will residence six times. But who’s counting?

  George and Nancy periodically went to lunch around town. And once they lunched at the historic home of George Mason down near the Bull Run battlefield.

  Sometimes, George told me, the lunches were purely social in nature and occasionally she was worried about something or someone. She liked to chat about DC and enjoyed the local gossip.

  So what does George remember most about those lunches? “How little she ate. She’d eat a grape.” I am quite certain he was exaggerating. At least a little bit.

  The Wills were invited to an early state dinner; George was seated at the president’s table. That was normally a great honor, but in this case he said some businessman monopolized the conversation, gushing over the president the entire evening and leaving no opportunity for anyone else at the table to enjoy the president’s company.

  After that, he turned down repeated state dinner invitations until Nancy finally called him and personally asked him if he wanted to come to the Gorbachev dinner where seats were in great demand. “No,” he replied, “I hate those dinners.” Nancy knew how to break down George’s resistance. She said, “I’ll seat you next to Joe DiMaggio.” George responded immediately, “What time should I be there?” As anyone who knows George is well aware, George Will is an avid baseball fan.

  When asked what else he remembers about Nancy, he immediately replied, “She had a great laugh. Throaty. And she was capable of being high spirited and worried at the same time.”

  * * *

  Doug Wick describes himself as a “lefty” Democrat who was “nuts about Nancy.” As the son of Reagan friends Mary Jane and Charlie Wick, Doug spent every Christmas Eve of his childhood with the Reagan family. And, during the Reagans’ eight years in Washington, every Christmas Day as well. At those celebrations Charles Wick would often play the piano as Nancy sang. And every year someone was dressed up as Santa Claus, including both President and Mrs. Reagan.

  According to Doug, Nancy loved matchmaking. He remembers when he brought his girlfriend, Lucy Fisher, home for Christmas. Nancy spent half an hour talking to her away from everyone else. Doug explained that Lucy was a “lefty Harvard girl.” Nancy pulled Doug aside after her conversation with Lucy and said, “Don’t blow this.” He thought Nancy had X-ray vision for good character. “She dogged me to marry Lucy and she turned out to be right.”

  At Doug and Lucy’s wedding, Nancy won over the entire crowd, many of whom were Democrats. A very successful lesbian writer went to Nancy’s table and asked her to dance. Without missing a beat, Nancy said, “You lead.” And off they went to the dance floor. As usual, Doug says, Nancy was fun and graceful.

  He explained that the best testament to how close they were to Nancy was that more than thirty years ago when he was racing pregnant Lucy to the hospital, Nancy got his second call right after his mother, Mary Jane Wick.

  Later, back in private life in Los Angeles, Nancy was upset to learn that Doug’s then eight-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with diabetes; he turned to Nancy for help. Nancy appeared at a Stuart Little movie premiere with Doug and worked the red carpet to talk about diabetes and stem cell research. Doug had introduced Nancy to the issues surrounding stem cell research, which he believed held the promise of an eventual cure for diabetes. Nancy became a strong advocate.

  In addition, he also introduced her to pediatric AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser who had coffee with the Reagans and talked about pediatric AIDS and the entire HIV landscape. Within a week, President Reagan got involved, helping Doug any way he could to get these issues wide attention.

  Later, as Nancy’s health began to deteriorate, Doug visited and they talked quite a bit. “Even when she was failing, about two weeks before she died, she still had that kind of girlish flirtation; she was playful.”

  He said they reminisced about all their Christmases together. Three days before she died, as they talked about the old days, he noticed the book of love letters the president had written to her and he began reading them to her. She began to give him some romantic advice. She told him that a lustrous love relationship had a limited amount of sparkle—that every relationship is like a star. If you knock away any of that sparkle, it doesn’t come back. She told him that words spoken in anger can never be unspoken.

  * * *


  Tessa Taylor is the daughter of legendary leading man Robert Taylor and his wife, German actress Ursula Thiess. The Reagans and Taylors were the closest of friends during the Hollywood years and while raising their young families in the Pacific Palisades and Brentwood, California. They were such good friends that when Robert Taylor died, then governor Ronald Reagan delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

  Tessa shared these memories about Nancy:

  I knew Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Nancy as a kid, but it was when I was an adult that I really formed a close relationship with Nancy, and she was amazing. She truly became my godmother then. My mother had dementia and a very deep depression and was not communicating well with me. Aunt Nancy was the first person I called for help. She was able to bridge the communications gap. She helped me through the last years of my mom’s life. Aunt Nancy would visit Mom in her home for years and then when she was in an assisted living facility; she would just sit with her for hours and reminisce. The old memories were the most vivid and happy.

  Aunt Nancy knew I was lonely after mom died, especially during the holidays. She always invited me to Christmas dinner at her home. Patti and Ron and Doria were very sweet to me, too.

  Christmas with Aunt Nancy was wonderful, very traditional. She invited lots of friends like David Jones, the wonderful Los Angeles florist and one of her closest friends; and usually Dennis Revell and Cyndy and, of course, Patti were there. Dinner was beautifully prepared—turkey—and always a yule log cake dessert. And there was a fire going in the dining room for added coziness.

  The Reagan house was always perfect. But always comfortable. A wonderful homey atmosphere.