Killing Reagan

by Bill O'Reilly

  Four F-18 fighter jets thunder overhead while a military band plays “America the Beautiful.” Symbolically, one of the jets suddenly peels away, leaving the other three to fly on in the “missing man” formation.

  “I know in my heart that man is good,” the inscription on Reagan’s tombstone reads, “that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”

  Notes

  Prologue

    1. A group of Reagan’s friends bought the house for $2.5 million while he was still in office and leased it to him with an option to buy—which Reagan did, in December 1989, for $3.0 million. The 7,192-square-foot home sits on a 1.29-acre lot and features a swimming pool, three bedrooms, and six bathrooms. Next door is the former Kirkeby Estate, which served as the setting for the Beverly Hillbillies television show. Despite the price of Reagan’s home, one real estate agent noted that “it’s a very ordinary house—Reagan must be the poorest man in Bel-Air.”

  Chapter One

    1. There were supposed to be three debates in the 1980 campaign, due to the presence of third-party candidate John Anderson, a Republican congressman from Illinois who ran as an independent. President Carter refused to debate Anderson, giving Reagan and Carter the chance to go head-to-head.

    2. Reagan’s hair was actually brown, but the wet look of his hairstyling made it appear black.

    3. One reason Jimmy Carter is behind is that CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite’s nightly tally of the number of days the American hostages had been held in Iran helped lower voter confidence in Carter.

    4. He immediately attempted to cover the slip by adding, “That’s where I’m going,” referring to his four-nation swing through South America. In fact, he was not going to Bolivia. His next stop was Colombia, whose capital city is Bogotá. Officials tried to cover for Reagan by changing the transcript of the speech to read “Bogota.” When asked why, they replied that it was what Reagan intended to say and refused to alter their correction.

    5. While this remark is still unclaimed, those within the Reagan and Carter circles believe they were the words of the late Lyn Nofziger (1924–2006), a political veteran who was known for his candor with the press.

    6. Barbara Walters, ABC News; William Hilliard, Portland Oregonian; Marvin L. Stone, U.S. News & World Report; and Harry Ellis, Christian Science Monitor.

    7. Three thousand in the auditorium and 80.6 million watching at home on television.

    8. The Reagan campaign argued that the lecterns should be side by side, which would accentuate Reagan’s height. The Carter campaign refused. On the night of the debate, as one observer noted, the lecterns were “as far as possible apart, without actually going off the stage.”

    9. Nancy Reagan was born in New York City on July 6, 1921, as Anne Frances Robbins. Her mother was an actress and her father a used-car salesman. The two split up when the girl who had earned the nickname Nancy was just six. She was sent to live with family in Maryland. Her mother remarried, to a Chicago neurosurgeon named Loyal Davis, who adopted Nancy and gave her his surname. In 1949, after working for a time as a sales clerk, she traveled to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. During that time she dated several prominent names in Hollywood, among them Clark Gable.

  10. As noted in Craig Shirley’s Rendezvous with Destiny, the late Paul Corbin, an influential Democrat and friend of the Kennedy family who was bitter about Ted Kennedy losing to Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Democratic primary race, admitted to stealing the playbook shortly after copies were assembled in the White House on the night of October 23. The book was then given to William Casey, the former World War II OSS spy who led the Reagan campaign. Finally, on October 25, the Carter book was handed to the three key players in Reagan’s debate prep: James Baker III, David Gergen, and David Stockman. Three years later, when word about the theft was leaked, a ten-month congressional and FBI investigation ensued. Corbin never surfaced as the culprit, and the truth did not come out about his involvement until after his death in 1990. Pat Caddell, when interviewed for this book, said he believes Corbin was given the book by a member of the National Security Council serving in Carter’s White House.

  11. Just moments after the debate ended, a group of journalists came to Jimmy Carter before he could leave the stage. “Are you prepared to claim victory? Did you win it?” Carter refused to answer.

  12. Carter won his home state of Georgia, plus Minnesota, the home state of running mate Walter Mondale. The Carter-Mondale ticket also captured Hawaii, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

  Chapter Two

    1. Not an actual street, but a movie set at Universal Studios. Similar homes on the back lot would be used for many productions in the years to come, including the hit television series Desperate Housewives.

    2. Fred de Cordova, a graduate of Harvard Law School, will go on to become Johnny Carson’s longtime producer on The Tonight Show. In that time, Carson will make several comedic jabs at Bedtime for Bonzo.

    3. The Wrigley family, who owned the Cubs at the time, also owned a controlling interest in the island, which is why the Cubs trained there.

    4. They were members of a band called the Oklahoma Outlaws, which had a big following in the Midwest. Autry, who was looking for ways to broaden his national audience, had arranged to bring them to Hollywood.

    5. Such a pace will be unheard of in years to come, but in an era before television, studios produce hundreds of films each year, and for an actor to go from one picture to another is as simple as walking from one soundstage to a different one next door.

    6. Code-named Operation Aphrodite, the drone program featured radio-controlled B-24 bombers that were packed with explosives and flown into position by pilots, who would then bail out as the planes flew on to their targets, guided from afar by a “mother ship.” Sometimes, however, the explosives detonated long before the pilots were able to eject. One such fatality was Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., older brother of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy, who died in a similar naval program known as Operation Anvil.

    7. Michael Reagan later wrote of Wyman that the death of Christine was “probably the most painful experience of her life, and I don’t think she ever truly recovered from it.” Wyman’s 1951 movie The Blue Veil reopened those wounds, as the protagonist dealt with the matter of premature infant death. Filmed in and around St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the film had a profound impact on Jane Wyman’s life. The experience brought about a spiritual transformation; three years later, Wyman was baptized into the Catholic Church.

    8. Of the fifty-three films he made in his career, Kings Row was Reagan’s favorite. He plays the second lead in the picture, a young man whose legs have been amputated by a villainous surgeon. Reagan’s key line, which he uttered spontaneously, happens the moment the young man looks down and sees that his legs are gone: “Where’s the rest of me?” It later became the title of his 1965 memoir.

    9. Laurie would go on to win Academy Award nominations for The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God. Patricia Neal would win an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1963 for Hud, costarring Paul Newman. Penny Edwards was never nominated but made a name for herself as Roy Rogers’s love interest in six Hollywood Westerns.

  10. Chief among Larson’s reasons for turning him down is her adherence to the Bahá’í Faith, which does not believe in politics. However, that excuse belies the fact that Larson was not in love with Reagan. Among others, she is seeing actors Gary Cooper and Mickey Rooney. She will also go on to have an affair with Lew Ayres, the actor who was involved with Jane Wyman while she and Reagan were still married. In another example of the mattress hopping so common in Hollywood at the time, the legendary lover and Reagan’s friend, Gary Cooper, will be rumored to have slept with almost every single leading lady of his l
engthy career, including Patricia Neal.

  11. Wyman won Best Actress for Johnny Belinda in 1949. She was also nominated for Best Actress in 1947 (The Yearling), 1952 (The Blue Veil), and 1955 (Magnificent Obsession).

  Chapter Three

    1. The sequel is titled Bonzo Goes to College. It stars Edmund Gwenn, best known for his role as Kris Kringle in the classic Miracle on 34th Street, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

    2. Kelly was a man of high ideals who left the Catholic Church when he felt it was not doing enough to halt world hunger, yet donated money to the Provisional Irish Republican Army in its war against Protestants and the British occupation of Northern Ireland. The famous dancer, best known for Singin’ in the Rain, was once quoted as saying, “I believe in God, the American Way of Life, the freedom of the individual, and everything the Constitution of the United States stands for.” To Kelly, this also meant tolerance for the Communists, which made him the perfect middleman for discussions between Reagan and Sorrell.

    3. Revere won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in the movie National Velvet. Morley turned to politics after leaving Hollywood, running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of New York in 1954. She returned to acting in the 1970s, appearing on television in episodes of Kojak and Kung Fu.

    4. Not to be confused with Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Communist investigations, HUAC was originally founded in 1938 to root out Nazi sympathizers. It switched its focus to communism as the Soviet Union rose to power. Thirty-four-year-old Richard Nixon, a newly elected California congressman, was a member of HUAC on the day Reagan testified but was not in attendance.

    5. The battle against communism dogged Ronald Reagan right up to the very end of his term as Screen Actors Guild president. On January 16, 1952, during one of Reagan’s final SAG meetings, powerful director Stanley Kramer explained to the board that his recent movie, Death of a Salesman, was being picketed by pro-Communist groups who were accusing him of discrimination because he refused to employ Communists. In order to prevent the increasing use of this tactic against other filmmakers, Kramer filed a libel lawsuit. Director John Ford, who gained fame making John Wayne Westerns such as Stagecoach, stepped forward to say that he would testify on Kramer’s behalf. As a result, Reagan and the SAG board issued a formal resolution backing Kramer and repudiating the Communist pressure. Left unsaid was that during his tenure as president of the SAG board, Reagan had completely shifted the leadership from being sympathetic to communism to openly opposing the ideology and its tactics.

  Chapter Four

    1. Nancy Davis has never been married. She was engaged briefly in 1944 to a young naval officer named J. P. White Jr. but broke it off after just a few months. A series of brief affairs followed. “She was what men at that time thought of as ‘available,’” a family friend will later recall. After moving from Chicago to New York in 1945 to pursue a Broadway career, Davis had affairs with actor Alfred Drake and producer Max Allentuck. She moved to California and signed with MGM in 1949, where she earned a reputation for being ambitious and allegedly having a torrid affair with producer Benny Thau, a man well known for using the casting couch to further the careers of young actresses. In 1949 Nancy made a list for herself of show business’s most eligible bachelors, with an eye to trying to marry one. Ronald Reagan’s name was at the top of the list, beginning the three years of pursuit leading to their marriage.

    2. Ardis Ankerson is a striking brunette who goes by the stage name of Brenda Marshall. Unlike many actresses, she insists that friends and family use her real name rather than her stage name. She is best known for playing Errol Flynn’s love interest in the 1940 pirate film The Sea Hawk. She made her last film in 1950, preferring to put her career on hold to raise a family. After a number of separations, William Holden and Ardis Ankerson divorced in 1971. Among Holden’s lovers during their marriage were costars Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Shelley Winters, and the French bombshell Capucine. He also had a torrid weeklong affair with Jackie Kennedy in the mid-1950s. Holden, who bragged to a friend that he had played the role of bedroom tutor to the wife of the future American president, commented, “If she goes back to Washington and works her magic with Kennedy he will owe me one.”

    3. Neighbors of the Holdens include Bob Hope, Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges, and Frank Sinatra. The Holden home will one day be owned by actor Denzel Washington.

    4. President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, were married at the Mission Inn. A host of other presidents has visited the historic building: Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush. Notably, Kennedy is the only Democrat.

    5. Reagan is not at the hospital the night Patricia Ann Reagan is delivered by caesarean section. He is in the arms of Larson. However, that relationship comes to an end shortly thereafter, when Reagan shows up at Larson’s apartment and a French actor wearing just a small towel answers the door. Nancy will never acknowledge that she is aware of the relationship but will later comment, “When I was back in my room and the nurses brought me our baby for the first time, my first thought was that it was sad that Ronnie couldn’t be there.” Reagan never provided an excuse for his absence; Nancy just accepted that he wasn’t there.

  Chapter Seven

    1. Among them are Judith Campbell and the actress Marilyn Monroe. Campbell, who once dated Frank Sinatra, will go on to become the mistress of mobster Sam Giancana.

    2. The official residence of the vice president is now the U.S. Naval Observatory in northwestern Washington, DC. However, Congress did not make this official until 1974. Until that time, vice presidents maintained their own private residence. Nixon purchased the five-thousand-square-foot house on Forest Lane in 1957.

    3. The writer was Norman Mailer, in a piece for Esquire about the 1960 Democratic National Convention titled “Superman Comes to the Supermarket.”

    4. November 19, 1955. The National Review was founded by William F. Buckley Jr., a wealthy former CIA operative who believed that conservative commentary was all too often missing from American political debate.

    5. Reagan’s animosity toward John F. Kennedy will continue even after the young president is shot dead by an assassin’s bullet. On November 22, 1963, just a few hours after JFK is assassinated, Ronald and Nancy Reagan will hold a dinner. “Why should we cancel our dinner party just because John F. Kennedy died? Don’t be silly,” Nancy Reagan told one guest who called to ask if the party was still on. The man, a film producer and former U.S. Army brigadier general named Frank McCarthy, arrived to find Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, and actor Robert Taylor socializing. As a film producer, McCarthy will go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1970 for Patton.

    6. Polls showed that Richard Nixon would win the 1962 California gubernatorial election. However, Nixon failed to reach out to the more conservative elements of the Republican Party, a blunder that cost him dearly. The incumbent, Pat Brown, won in a landslide, garnering 52 percent of the popular vote to Nixon’s 47 percent.

    7. One young supporter of Goldwater, and an active member of the Young Republican movement, was a seventeen-year-old Chicago-area young lady named Hillary Rodham. She was fond of wearing a cowgirl outfit and a straw hat emblazoned with the Goldwater campaign’s AuH2O slogan (Au is the periodic symbol for gold; H2O the symbol for water). Shortly afterward, she would switch her party allegiance to the Democrats, perhaps under pressure from her liberal friends at Wellesley College.

    8. Reagan’s previous film was 1957’s Hellcats of the Navy, which costarred Nancy Reagan. Their final on-camera performance as a couple was the 1958 GE Theater episode with the prescient title “A Turkey for the President.”

    9. Delivered at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. Bryan was a thirty-six-year-old former
Nebraska congressman when he delivered the address. His oration was so powerful that the audience screamed in agreement, waving hats and canes. Some audience members threw their coats into the air. The speech, which advocated the use of silver coinage to increase American prosperity, was so effective that Bryan won the nomination. He ultimately lost the general election to Republican candidate William McKinley (who was shot by an assassin’s bullet on September 6, 1901, died eight days later, and was succeeded in office by Theodore Roosevelt). William Jennings Bryan ran for the presidency twice more and later in life supplemented his income by delivering the “Cross of Gold” speech during lecture appearances. Bryan is also well known as being the foil for famed attorney Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Monkey Trial, which argued the legality of teaching evolution in schools. Bryan, a devout Presbyterian, argued against the practice. He died in his sleep five days after winning the case.

  Chapter Eight

    1. Death Valley Days, a Western-themed production that ran for 452 episodes from 1952 to 1970. Reagan was the second of four men who hosted the show. He also acted in eight episodes.

    2. When confronted many years later, Ronald Reagan will deny that astrologers played a role in his gubernatorial swearing-in, stating that the unusual midnight ceremony was due to the fact that then governor Pat Brown was making last-minute bureaucratic appointments.

    3. Reagan’s sadness about the sale of the ranch to Twentieth Century–Fox in 1966 was tempered by the $1.9 million selling price, which made him a millionaire for the first time. The property is now part of Malibu Creek State Park, but during the time that Twentieth Century–Fox owned it, the ranch was the location for many motion pictures, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was also the location for the television show M*A*S*H.