by Mike Wallace
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still a little intimidated by the challenge, I treasured her warmth and friendship.
Edie was married to an eminent neurosurgeon, Loyal Davis, and she had a daughter from a prior marriage to a car salesman. In fact, six-year-old Nancy had been the flower girl at her mother’s wedding to Loyal. By the time I met her, Nancy Davis was a student at Smith College, and I remember her as a prim and proper young lady who often wore white gloves and Peter Pan collars. Although I didn’t know her well in those days, she struck me as being shy and reserved—
almost the opposite of her exuberant mother—and so I was rather surprised when I later learned that “sweet little Nancy” (as I then thought of her) had gone off to Hollywood to seek her own fame and fortune as an actress. While she managed to land a few roles in minor films, her dream of becoming a star didn’t pan out, at least not in the conventional Hollywood way. But the path she chose did lead to real-life romance. The next thing I heard, she was getting married to the well-known actor Ronald Reagan. I didn’t give much thought to that at the time except to harbor the hope, as I would for any friend, that her marriage would bring her a lifetime of happiness.
Years passed. I moved on to New York, where I continued to bounce from one news job to another, among other chores, until I finally settled down in 1963 as a correspondent for CBS News. In California, meanwhile, Reagan’s acting career lapsed into decline. The more it languished, the more time and attention he devoted to politics. By the early 1960s, he had become an eloquent spokesman for the conservative wing of the Republican Party. For a long time, Reagan’s political speeches were largely dismissed as another ego trip by a Hollywood star who believed his celebrity gave him the authority to pontificate on Soviet aggression and other burning issues of the day.
Then came his 1966 campaign for the governor’s chair in California.
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It was Reagan’s first run for public office of any kind, and he con-founded the experts by defeating the two-term Democratic incumbent, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. Just like that, a rank political amateur had become governor of our largest state and, by definition, a political force on the national stage.
Still, I didn’t imagine Reagan had much chance of capturing the White House, or even had the ambition to run. For one thing, his brand of conservatism had been thoroughly discredited in Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. For another, there was the question of credentials, or lack of them. Reagan’s professional identity may not have been viewed as a liability in California, where actors are as plentiful as geezers in Florida or oil barons in Texas, but I found it hard to envision voters across the country entrusting the nuclear trigger and complex questions of foreign policy to a man who was known primarily as “the King of the B Movies.”
Needless to say, I kept those reservations to myself when I ran into Edie Davis and her daughter at the 1968 Republican convention in Miami Beach. They were there to voice support for Reagan’s eleventh-hour effort to wrest the nomination from Nixon. Our brief reunion took place on the convention floor, and with the CBS cameras rolling, I asked Edie if she offered Nancy and her husband advice on how to raise their children.
“Oh, heavens no,” she replied. “I want them to still speak to me.”
“Well,” I reminded her, “you did such a good job yourself.”
“You helped me.”
I have no idea what she meant by that, because as I said, I hadn’t met Nancy until she was a college student, and even then I didn’t really know her well.
Reagancompleted his second term as governor in1974. That was also the year the Watergate crisis reached its boiling point and brought
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the end to Nixon’s presidency. That disruptive change did not deter Reaganfrom going ahead with his planto runfor president in1976, even though such a move now meant challenging the new White House incumbent, Gerald Ford, for the Republican nomination.
In the fall of 1975, shortly after he announced his candidacy, I did a profile of the Reagans for 60 Minutes. Part of the story dealt with such predictable matters as Reagan’s campaign strategy and his political philosophy. At the time, most Americans didn’t know very much about the Reagans as a couple, so most of what we filmed was a family portrait. We showed them relaxing at their 640-acre ranch near Santa Barbara, where I talked to them at some length about the life they shared and their rapturous devotion to each other. I had heard a charming story about the circumstances that first brought them together in Hollywood, and so I asked Nancy about that.
W A L L A C E : Mrs. Reagan, I understand that you met this fellow first about twenty-four years ago because you were a subscriber to the Daily Worker. The Communist Party newspaper?
M R S . R E A G A N : I wasn’t, but there was a Nancy Davis who was. I was doing a picture for Mervyn LeRoy, and I complained to him about it. And he said, “I know Ronald Reagan.
He’s president of the Screen Actors Guild, and he’ll be able to straighten out your problem.”
W A L L A C E : You didn’t want to get on any blacklist or anything of the sort? Nancy Davis, Daily Worker subscriber.
M R S . R E A G A N : (Laughs) Well, at that point I just wanted to meet Ronald Reagan.
She had recently been quoted as saying that “my life began when I met Ronnie,” and I mentioned that when some people heard that,
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they were inclined to chuckle. And she replied, “Well, then they chuckle. But it did.” For his part, Reagan was no less rhapsodic in his comments about their relationship.
R E A G A N : For all the years we’ve been married, it’s been “we,”
not “you and I.” It would be inconceivable to me to go my own way on something without her. And I think it would be the same with her.
W A L L A C E : She’s your Lady Bird?
R E A G A N : (Laughs) No, no. There’s no Lady Bird in Nancy.
W A L L A C E : What do you mean?
R E A G A N : Well, you’ve known her longer than I have. And you know her as a very private person, and a very vulnerable person.
Although Reagandid n
ot succeed inhis in
surgen
t campaign
against President Ford, he came a lot closer to winning the GOP
nominationin1976 thanmany of us had anticipated. And if, as expected, he chose to runagainin1980, he was likely to be evenmore formidable. Like many other Americans, I’d underestimated Reagan’s appeal as a national candidate, and for me, this was starting to pose a problem. There was no doubt in my mind that Nancy (and, to a lesser extent, her husband) looked upon me more as a friend than as a reporter.
In fairness, they had little reason to think otherwise. The only major story I had done on them was the 1975 profile, which turned out to be not much more than a soft-touch feature piece. That, of course, had been our intention; we had purposely set out to do a “getting to know you” story. But with the arrival of 1980 and another campaign, one that could easily put the Reagans in the White House,
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I decided the time had come to make it clear to them that being their friend did not make me their toady. And the best way to get that point across would be to interview the candidate and confront him with questions I was certain he wouldn’t like. In other words, no more Mr.
Nice Guy.
The opportunity came in July 1980, when I sat down with Reagan at his home in Pacific Palisades a few days before the Republican convention opened in Detroit. Having breezed through the primaries that spring, he had a firm lock on the nomination. In our interview, I asked him about his lingering reputation as a super-hawk, an inflexible foe of détente with the Soviet Union and China. I alluded to recent polls that indicated many Americans sti
ll viewed the prospect of his presidency with alarm and apprehension. Some of them had told pollsters they were actually scared to have him in the White House. I also reminded him about the outlandish stand he had taken back in 1965, when he declared, “It’s silly talking about how many years we’ll have to stay in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave that whole country, put parking stripes on it, and still be home for Christmas.”
I then brought up another hot-button issue: Reagan’s reputed lack of rapport with the African-American community. Just a few days earlier, he had incurred the wrath of many blacks when he dis-regarded an invitation to speak at the NAACP’s annual convention.
The head of that organization, Benjamin Hooks, called the lack of response a snub, and one more example of Reagan’s “racial insensitivity” and avoidance of public appearances with black leaders. After Reagan and I had talked a little about that, I decided to bring the issue closer to home.
W A L L A C E : How many blacks are there on your top campaign staff, Governor?
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R E A G A N : I couldn’t honestly answer you. No.
W A L L A C E : That speaks for itself.
R E A G A N : Huh?
W A L L A C E : I said, that speaks for itself.
R E A G A N : No, because I can’t tell you how many people are on the staff.
W A L L A C E : But you can tell black from white.
R E A G A N : Oh yes, but I mean we’ve got a mix of volunteers and staff members and—
W A L L A C E : I’m talking about top campaign staff.
R E A G A N : Well, let me put it this way—
W A L L A C E : Let me not belabor it. I mean, apparently, there are none.
R E A G A N : No, I don’t think so. I mean, I’m— I don’t— I don’t agree with you on that.
In addition to being flustered, Reagan was miffed. And so was his wife. While I pressed him about blacks and his reputation as a belli-cose cold warrior and other sore points, I was acutely aware of Nancy, across the room, in an agitated state, beyond the range of the camera; I could almost feel her glaring at me. When we paused briefly to put a new roll of film in the camera, she marched over to me, eyes ablaze, and opened fire: “Mike Wallace, what kind of questions are you asking? Why are you doing this to Ronnie?”
I responded, wearily, with the standard reporter’s explanation that in asking the kind of questions that upset her, I was merely doing my job. Her reaction to my little lesson in Journalism 101 was swift and sure: The next thing I knew, Nancy had flung herself onto my lap and was giving me a big hug. That may have been nothing more than an impulsive show of affection, but I suspect it was more
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likely a move calculated to underscore our long friendship and thus remind me that no friend of hers should be “doing this to Ronnie.” In any event, we all burst out laughing, and that eased the tension a bit.
But I obviously had hit a nerve or two, and over the next few days, I kept hearing comments about how much I had upset Reagan, Nancy, and his people. The reports of their displeasure were, of course, music to my ears.
Reagan went on to his nomination at the GOP convention, and from there he marched through his victorious campaign against President Carter. Although Nancy and I kept in fairly close touch with each other during her eight years in Washington, it was mutually understood that our telephone conversations were strictly off the record; even now it would not be proper for me to violate that confidence. I can say, however, that she was a very savvy politician in her own right, and she had firm—often critical—opinions about some of the president’s top advisers. But much to my regret, not once did she steer me toward an inside story that I could report on 60 Minutes.
Most of the time we simply nattered on in the familiar manner of two friends who’d known each other for decades.
More than anything else, perhaps, we talked about our kids.
Nancy was somewhat estranged from her daughter, Patti, and son, Ron, and I tried to help her deal with that. Actually, she probably saw more of my son Chris in those days than she did her own children, because he was then covering the White House for NBC News, and doing a first-rate job on that beat. I know from what Chris told me that Nancy always greeted him warmly, but when it came to getting inside scoops about life and work in the White House, he had no better luck than I did.
Over the past three decades, Chris has built up his own solid reputation as a television correspondent. I’m obviously proud of the fact
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that he decided to pursue a career in broadcasting, even though it wasn’t his first choice. When he graduated from Harvard in 1969, his sights were set on print journalism, and he landed a job covering city hall for The Boston Globe. After some gentle prodding from me and his stepfather, my good friend and longtime colleague Bill Leonard (who later became president of CBS News), Chris crossed over to our branch of the media. Following the usual path, he started out in local news and moved on to the networks, first NBC, then ABC, and, most recently, Rupert Murdoch’s domain, where, on FOX News Sunday, he demonstrates week in and week out that he’s better at anchoring a news show than I ever was.
Getting back to Nancy, the difficulties she went through with her children were all the more poignant because they were in such sharp contrast to the warm and loving relationship she had with her own mother. Edie Davis died in 1987 at the age of ninety-one. I wrote a farewell tribute to her for The Washington Post, and in putting it together, I was struck by how fortunate my old friend had been. Not only had she enjoyed a long and full life, but during her golden years, she experienced the deep satisfaction of seeing her daughter live in the White House as First Lady to an extremely popular president who also happened to be a most devoted son-in-law. One of the joys of Edie’s life was that every year on her daughter’s birthday, Reagan would send her flowers to thank her for having given birth to Nancy.
The last time I interviewed Reagan on 60 Minutes was in January 1989, just before his two-term reign came to an end. Among the questions I put to him on that occasion were several about decisions and policies that had provoked serious criticism and thus were apt to leave blemishes on his legacy. In particular, I brought up the Iran-Contra affair, the big-time scandal that shook up the White House power structure and even threatened to destroy his presidency. Rea-
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gan acknowledged that 1987—the year the scandal dominated the political headlines—had been “a very tough year,” but he said he could not discuss the specifics of the elaborate deception because some of the legal cases had not yet been resolved. However, he did make a point of saying that “the whole Iran-Contra affair has been terribly distorted by the media up and down,” and he expressed confidence that the misadventure would have little or no lasting impact on his reputation.
Self-confidence had often been cited as one of Reagan’s political strengths, so I asked him about the almost jaunty optimism and bon-homie he had projected throughout his eight years in Washington.
W A L L A C E : We’ve heard the presidency called the loneliest job in the world, a splendid misery, whatever, and I have never sensed that you have been the least bit miserable or the least bit lonely in this job. Why hasn’t this job weighed as heavily on you as it has on some other occupants of the Oval Office?
R E A G A N : Well, Mike, I don’t know what the answer to that would be. Maybe none of them had a Nancy. But I came here with a belief that this country, the people, were kind of hun-gering for a, call it a spiritual revival. The whole thing of the sixties and the rioting and so forth and the disillusionment with Vietnam, it seemed that the people had kind of lost faith in the destiny of this country and all. And I came here with, as I say, plans, and set out to implement them. No, we didn’t get everything we asked for, but you don’t fall back in de
feat.
There was no doubt inmy mind that Reaganhad infused the White House with a pride and self-assurance that had not been seen there since the invigorating years of Kennedy’s New Frontier
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and the early days of the Great Society, when LBJ was still a commanding presence. In the process, Reagan made millions of Americans feel better about their government, their country, and even themselves. After all the disruptions and setbacks we had been through, we needed anemotional uplift, and Reagangave us that.
Intangible though it was, I regard that as one of his most impressive triumphs.
As for substance, I think Reagan deserves a large share of the credit for one of the towering achievements of our time: the collapse of Soviet power in Europe that brought an end to the cold war. It’s true, of course, that by the time he became president, the Soviet system was already sliding into serious dysfunction. But Reagan’s decisions to beef up the U.S. military and expand the frontiers of nuclear technology put so much pressure on the Russians that they came to realize that a peaceful solution was their best option. When the time came for critical discussions at the summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan proved to be an adept and flexible negotiator. To the astonishment of many—especially his detractors—the old cold warrior, who had once denounced the Soviet Union as “an evil empire,” transformed himself into an ardent peacemaker.
In our interview, Reagan recalled how that transformation began in earnest in 1985, at his first summit meeting with Gorbachev. At one point, he said, the two leaders slipped away from the arms negotiations and went off by themselves to a lakeside cottage, accompanied only by their interpreters. For over an hour, they sat in front of an open fire and chatted. Here’s part of that conversation as Reagan remembered it four years later:
“I said, ‘We don’t mistrust each other because we’re armed. We’re armed because we mistrust each other. And while it’s all right to talk about arms and limitations on arms, why don’t you and I see if we