Reagan

by Bob Spitz

  Spencer was much more concerned about the latest poll numbers. “The campaign had gone flat; we had a big weakness,” he recalls. There was a nine-point deficit among female voters and independents. “We knew we could deliver the base, but the gender gap was nose-diving, big-time.” Reagan’s positions on social issues—abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, school busing, gay rights, public-school prayer, and apartheid—put him at odds with women and young voters. According to Betty Heitman, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, “Jimmy Carter has been very effective in painting Governor Reagan as trigger-happy and a warmonger. Most women are scared to death if they think anyone would get us into war.”

  In order to get a better handle on the problem, Ray Stark, a big-ticket Hollywood producer who was friendly with the Reagans, arranged a lunch between Spencer and Gloria Steinem at Universal Studios. “I’m not into this feminist shit,” Spencer protested to Stark. Grudgingly, at Stark’s insistence, he kept the appointment and came away from it an instant convert. “She delineated all the things that were wrong with our campaign and, in an insightful and very charming way, gave me a good understanding why women weren’t going for Ronald Reagan,” Spencer recalls. “I drove straight over to his house in Pacific Palisades and told him, “We’ve got a problem.”

  Reagan wasn’t about to alter the positions on social issues he’d held fast to for thirty years, but the gender gap dismayed him. He was still going to refer to women as ladies, no matter how many times Spencer warned him that it put people off, but when it meant alienating women, he was all ears. “What’s your solution?” he asked. On the drive over, Spencer had been tinkering with a radical idea. “What if you tell the American public that your first appointment to the Supreme Court will be a woman?” he proposed. “Would you have a problem with that?” Reagan thought it through. “Not if she’s qualified,” he eventually responded.

  The rest of the staff was a harder sell. “It bothered the hell out of all the hard-right conservative guys, like Marty Anderson and Lyn Nofziger,” Spencer says. “They just didn’t feel women were qualified for those kinds of positions.” No woman judge had infiltrated the Court’s brotherhood, and the ideologues saw no reason to break with tradition. Aides argued against taking a public position on it, but on October 14, at a press conference in Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announced he would name a woman “to one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration.”

  The campaign saw an immediate uptick in women’s support. But after a two-day bump, the numbers leveled off again. The national polls continued to seesaw, with the lead changing hands on almost a daily basis. Jimmy Carter hammered away at the image of Ronald Reagan as “dangerous” and “scary,” a warmonger, an irrational hawk who would divide Americans “black from white, Jew from Christian, North from South, rural from urban” and was eager to “lead our country toward war.” Reagan, for his part, stuck to the script, portraying his opponent as an inept president who had dropped the nation into an economic and strategic abyss. Taking no chances, the campaign spent $150,000 for a half hour of prime-time TV, giving Reagan the opportunity to represent himself as a man of strength, whose goal “first and foremost is the establishment of world peace.” But twelve days before the election, the polls showed Reagan with what the Associated Press termed “a narrowing lead,” ahead by a hair, maybe only 1 percent, maybe as much as 4. More worrisome, however: he was not pulling away. The Reagan high command knew it was the tendency of undecideds to vote for the incumbent at the last minute.

  Thought turned back to a debate. Carter kept insisting a two-man confrontation was necessary, but Reagan never deigned to accept his invitation. “Let’s see what the polls are,” he hedged, “then we’ll make our decision.” At this late date, the president didn’t believe it would ever come to pass. Finally, on October 23—only two weeks before the election—Reagan publicly agreed.

  The debate was set for October 28 in Cleveland, before a national TV audience. The League of Women Voters—“the ladies of the League,” as Reagan called them—excluded John Anderson, who had fallen below their threshold of 15 percent in the polls. Reagan was ready for it. He’d been well-prepped by Jim Baker, who had put a book together covering every potential issue and staged three days of rehearsals. The goal wasn’t for Reagan to match Carter point for point, but to appear poised and easygoing, projecting a presidential image. Nevertheless, Baker was relentless in his policy research, as was his stand-in for Carter, a brash, young staff economist named David Stockman, who pricked Reagan’s fury with his aggressive comebacks.

  In his hotel room before the debate, Reagan appeared fairly relaxed. Stu Spencer and Mike Deaver showed up just after dinner with a magnum of red wine meant to liquidate any residual anxiety. After a glass or two, Reagan began loosening up, telling jokes, doing impressions. There was no apparent case of nerves, considering he was about to perform—live! unscripted!—in front of an estimated hundred million viewers. His days at GE Theater had taught him a thing or two about live TV. And as far as jitters went, “I’ve been on the same stage as John Wayne,” he quipped to reporters who greeted him outside the Cleveland Convention Center.

  The debate itself offered no new insights. The repartee, for the most part, was respectful and civilized. Carter attacked Reagan for his “extremely dangerous” attitude toward arms control, as well as his positions on Social Security, the minimum wage, the Equal Rights Amendment, and health insurance. Reagan went on the offensive concerning the economy and the hostage and energy crises, defining Carter’s four-year term by “unkept promises” and “despair,” two phrases he saw spray-painted on walls during a visit to the South Bronx. Neither candidate scored the elusive knockout, not even the glancing blow their supporters were looking for. If any one line resonated with viewers, it occurred near the end of the evening, when Reagan looked into the camera and prompted the audience to ask themselves, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

  According to most polls, the candidates had fought to a draw. “We doubt that it swung a large block of the undecided vote one way or the other,” the Los Angeles Times concluded, “but at least it gave us voters a good look at the two of them.” And what they saw, according to random interviews, was a Reagan “genial, open,” at times “very reassuring,” and a Carter “intense almost to the point of grimness,” but “more informed, a better debater, and more presidential.”

  With a week left to go in the campaign, it was anyone’s race to win.

  * * *

  —

  Ronald Reagan gave it a last, explosive blast, conducting a whirlwind tour of appearances through Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. Twelve cities in three days, sixteen events, four hotel rooms—it was all he could do to remember his name. The weekend before Election Day, a pattern of voting became clear. “We were tracking polls nightly,” says Stu Spencer. “I could tell we were starting to take off.” Bellwether districts indicated that undecided voters and blue-collar Democrats were gravitating to Ronald Reagan. Ed Meese recalls, “We were relatively confident based on reports that the governor was going to win.”

  During a Saturday-night stopover on November 1, Stu Spencer visited the Reagans’ suite at Neil House in Columbus, Ohio. He delivered the news that a win on Tuesday was all but inevitable. Reagan, habitually superstitious, warned him, “I don’t talk like that!” Spencer said, “Okay. In case you win you’ve got to think about a chief of staff. Word on the street is that you’re going to pick Ed Meese.”

  In unison, Ron and Nancy sang out: “Oh no, no, no, no.” Spencer was instantly relieved. He liked Meese and credited him with defining and shaping Reagan’s vision, but felt Meese would be “a disaster” as chief of staff. “He was so disorganized,” Spencer says. “If anything went into Ed Meese’s briefcase, you never saw it again.” Dick Allen referred wryly to “the Meesecase—a briefcase without a bottom”—and echoed Spencer’s verdict that Meese, whi
le “a wonderful thinker, was incapable of managing an organization.” His office was a famous clutter of paperwork that started in piles on the floor and billowed up over his desk like a tidal wave. Meese would serve an important function, but not as chief of staff. Spencer brought up Mike Deaver’s name, albeit reluctantly. He knew Mike thought he deserved the job, but worried about the drinking issue. Lately, Deaver had been missing scheduled meetings, “sitting in his room,” Spencer recalls, “drinking a fucking gallon of wine.” Reagan emphatically put an end to that idea, saying, “No, Mike’s a number-two guy.”

  Considering the way Reagan governed—somewhat casually, relying on advisers—he needed a strong chief. Spencer then threw Jim Baker’s name into the hat. “But he’s Bush’s guy,” Nancy interjected. Spencer argued it positioned Baker as an excellent go-between with a vice president. “Besides, Baker is well organized, intelligent, and not a political operative. He’ll work for your agenda, not his or anybody else’s.”

  Nancy was adamant that a chief of staff be someone who could effectively insulate and protect her husband. As a lawyer, Jim Baker could handle the custodial structure, and as a former Marine whose code was semper fidelis they could rely on his loyalty. He had never been in Reagan’s sphere of vision, but the more Spencer talked, the more intriguing he became. It was significant that Reagan could divest his ego and choose someone outside his circle to be his chief of staff. Unlike insecure leaders who surround themselves with yes-men, blind loyalists, he was willing to put himself in the hands of the most competent person on the list, even one who had worked for a former rival, now his running mate, not fearful of being managed—in fact, welcoming it.

  The next day, en route to Cincinnati, Baker was offered a seat on the campaign plane, where the Reagans had a chance to observe him. They liked what they saw. When they landed, Nancy prodded her husband to intercept Baker and discuss the job. Reagan went one step further and offered it to him.

  * * *

  —

  Neil Reagan was predicting “a landslide.” He was one of about forty guests who had gathered in the late afternoon on November 4, 1980, at Marion and Earle Jorgensen’s mansion in Bel-Air while Ronald and Nancy toughed it out at home. It was an Election Day tradition to await results at the Jorgensens’. The longtime faithful were all in attendance. Holmes Tuttle, Henry Salvatori, Justin Dart, William French Smith, Jaq Hume, Bill Wilson, and Charlie Wick, members of the Kitchen Cabinet, were interspersed among old Hollywood stars like Jimmy Stewart and Robert Stack. Nancy’s society friends, the Annenbergs and the Bloomingdales, flew in at the last minute. Even the Reagan children—all of them, a rare occurrence—were part of the expectant crowd. There were three television sets in the living room, each tuned to a different network, all drawing anxious eyes to their muted screens. The polls were about to close on the East Coast, and the room was on edge. Only Moon, an unapologetic optimist, bounced from guest to guest, saying, “It’s a landslide; don’t worry about it.”

  If his brother, Dutch, had been there, he might have hustled the seventy-two-year-old Moon aside and ordered him not to jinx the results, but the Reagans were uncharacteristically late to the Jorgensen party. It had been a demanding day. They’d gone to vote early that morning, snaking through the street outside their home, which had been blocked off to traffic by wooden barriers and a Secret Service checkpoint. Stopping briefly to answer reporters’ questions about the chances of a Reagan victory, only Nancy offered, “Cautiously optimistic.” Their polling place, a few blocks away, was shoulder-to-shoulder with media, awaiting the arrival of the man they’d been following for close to eleven months. Lawrence Welk, Vin Scully, and Sylvester Stallone, all of whom lived in the precinct, had already passed through the gauntlet, but they didn’t command a fraction of the press of paparazzi that converged on the Reagans. By the time Ronald and Nancy voted and returned home, they longed to escape the bustle and steal a few hours of peace and quiet.

  They were due at the Jorgensens’ at four o’clock. In the meantime, it was impossible to even venture into the backyard amid the olive trees and jacaranda, what with all the helicopters swirling overhead and reporters hiding in the bushes. Ron took his beloved midafternoon nap and awoke in time to get ready for the party. Nancy recalled that she was in the tub when she heard a news report on the TV set in the bedroom. John Chancellor was calling the election for “Ronald Wilson Reagan of California, a sports announcer, a film actor, a governor of California.” Not quite the landslide Moon predicted, but a solid win, and by a respectable 51 percent of the popular vote to go with forty-four states in the Electoral College.

  By the time Ron and Nancy arrived at the party, his longtime friends and family weren’t sure what to expect. He shambled inside wearing a sport coat and open-collared shirt, slightly embarrassed, brushing aside the deferential salutes and honorifics from his closest friends who suddenly became stiff and unnerved in his presence. He reassured Marion Jorgensen that she could still call him Ronnie, but she and everyone else knew differently. When he walked through the door it was in an entirely new role. The poor boy from Dixon, Illinois, was the President of the United States.

  PART 4

  MR. PRESIDENT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “THE O AND W”

  “The governor of a state plays in the minor leagues. When you’re President, you’re in the big leagues.”

  —THOMAS P. (TIP) O’NEILL

  JANUARY 20, 1981

  Inauguration days are extraordinary occasions.

  The ritual, which Ronald Reagan called “nothing less than a miracle,” is an essential tableau in the greatest long-running dramas in American history: the peaceful transfer of power from one leader to another. But on this particular Inauguration Day, the ceremony was fast becoming the back end of a twin bill whose main feature was playing out 7,239 miles away.

  Rumors had built all week that the Iranian mullahs had reached an agreement with U.S. authorities to release the hostages. Carter administration officials had negotiated for days on end to untangle last-minute snags. The president had gone without sleep for forty-eight hours trying to bring the crisis to a peaceful close, resolved to make it his final act—hoping to greet the hostages at Andrews Air Force Base before turning over the reins of government. One minute it looked promising, the next there was another infuriating setback. Time was fast running out.

  Carter wasn’t grandstanding. Ronald Reagan had been looped in to all the developing details as befitted a president-elect; Warren Christopher, Carter’s deputy secretary of state, briefed Dick Allen on a daily basis. Two days earlier, just before lunch, Allen arrived at Blair House, where the governor was staying, to deliver the latest update. Reagan was in the bedroom with Jim Baker and Jim Brady, watching an ABC broadcast about the latest developments involving the transfer of $8 billion in frozen funds from twelve American banks to an Iranian escrow account. Reagan pursed his lips and scowled at the TV. “Shitheels!” he muttered. Had he been president, the hostages would have been on American soil before even a cent had been handed over to those blackmailers. He feared a charade.

  On the morning of January 20, when Reagan shared the traditional cup of tea with President Carter at the White House, word drifted in that the hostages were on buses heading to Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, where two Algerian jets sat idling, poised to fly them home. But after fourteen months of false starts, Americans monitoring the situation still weren’t sure whether the Iranians were jerking them around.

  The agonizing uncertainty had taken its toll on Carter. He was drained, emotionally and physically. All the vibrancy that had swept him into office—the familiar toothy grin and irrepressible smile—was imperceptible in the grim little man with pouchy eyes who clenched his hands during the hour-long exchange. He’d famously said that the country suffered from a malaise, and it seemed to be reflected in his physiognomy. As the two men slipped into a limousine that would take them to the
Capitol, the difference between the two was striking. Reagan looked every bit the leading man—dashing, as a Hollywood publicist might have described him—tan and rosy-cheeked, in a formfitting cutaway club coat and pinstriped pants that accentuated his cowboy build.

  The crowds clustered ten deep on Pennsylvania Avenue as their motorcade proceeded slowly along the route. “[Carter] said hardly a word to me,” Reagan recalled. He knew not to press him, understanding the tremendous pressure of the previous days and months. It was a balmy, overcast morning. Washington had suffered through weeks of freezing weather, but now experienced an unexpected thaw that pushed the mercury toward sixty degrees. Some 32,000 spectators had poured into an area below the grandstand, angling to witness the historic event.

  The scene of this inauguration was especially momentous. Since 1829, when Andrew Jackson took the oath of office only three years after the Dome was unveiled, the swearing-in had taken place on the steps of the East Front of the Capitol. It was an austere location, not especially scenic. From the makeshift podium, the view looked over a phalanx of government buildings. Senator Mark Hatfield, who chaired the inaugural committee in 1981, suggested moving the ceremony to the West Front, which overlooked the expansive outstretched Mall that included the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson memorials and, just beyond the Potomac, Arlington National Cemetery.

  The cemetery played a significant role in Reagan’s prepared address. Preston Hotchkis, a California land developer and friend to Republican presidents, had sent him a story about Martin Treptow, a small-town barber–turned–American soldier who had died valiantly in combat during World War I. According to the anecdote, a diary was found on Treptow’s body on whose flyleaf he had scrawled “My Pledge: America must win the war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.” Reagan was moved by those words—it fit his notion of old-fashioned patriotism and Americans working hard for the good of all—and wanted them incorporated into the end of his speech. Ken Khachigian, who had been brought in to compose it, envisioned an ending that referenced all the monuments on the horizon.