by Bob Spitz
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I never expected to be here,” Ronald Reagan thought as he disembarked in Moscow on May 28, 1988. It seemed to him like he had been “dropped into a grand historical moment.” For him, an anti-Soviet crusader, Moscow was never-never-land back in the day when so-called fellow travelers rattled the Hollywood movie industry. But this was a different time—and a very different set of circumstances. The Leader of the Free World had come to the Motherland, the cradle of Communism, evidence that “the ever whirling wheels of change,” as the poet Edmund Spenser said, were spinning in an extraordinary new direction.
The president sought to navigate that route as soon as he joined Mikhail Gorbachev, after hiking up a grand staircase into the Kremlin’s opulent St. George Hall. Without hesitating, he brought up the delicate subject of religious freedom, so delicate, in fact, “that if word got out that this was even being discussed, [he] would deny that he had said anything about it.” Reagan suggested that Gorbachev announce that “religious freedom was part of the peoples’ rights.” If Gorbachev could see his way clear to do that, the president was convinced, it would be seen as heroic and any ill feeling people had toward the Soviet Union would be erased. “This isn’t something I’m suggesting we negotiate,” he said, “just an idea. I’m not trying to tell you how to run your country.” It was being offered as friendly advice, nothing more. Reagan “did not want to kick anybody in the shins,” he said. And nonchalantly, so as not to press his luck, he added, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to tear down the Berlin Wall?”
Then he did press his luck. He handed Gorbachev a list of fourteen human rights cases that were on the State Department’s action list. “Will you act on these requests?” he inquired. Gorbachev pocketed it and bristled, saying, “There are too many lists.”
Nothing else of real importance was accomplished during the summit. Seven obligatory agreements were consummated, but they were minor for the most part, concerning such matters as fishing rights and the exchange of students. The main outcome was what Time referenced as the Photo Opportunity Summit, a public-relations extravaganza for both countries. The Reagans were photographed visiting Red Square, Lenin’s tomb, the Bolshoi Theater, and a renovated dacha where the Gorbachevs hosted a casual dinner. The only unscripted event was a spur-of-the-moment stroll along the Arbat, a refashioned pedestrian mall lined with quaint shops and cafés their son Ron had urged them to visit in order to meet “real” Russians. The Reagans jumped out of their limousine in order to greet the Sunday-evening strollers, who converged around the American couple in order to shake their outstretched hands. “It was amazing how quickly the street was jammed curb to curb with people,” Reagan recorded that night in his diary. “They were generally indistinguishable from people I had seen all my life on countless streets in America.” The outpouring of affection took him by surprise, but it turned dark and scary within minutes. KGB goons “appeared out of nowhere to form a flying wedge around the Reagans,” punching and kicking the well-wishers, flinging them violently aside. “I’ve never seen so much brutal manhandling as they did on their own people who were in no way getting out of hand,” the president observed. As he was pushed back into his car, he muttered, “It’s still a police state.”
Still, he managed to salvage unprecedented highlights from the visit—a speech promoting religious freedom at a monastery given back to the Russian Orthodox Church; another at Moscow State University to explain the beauty of the U.S. Constitution; and an address on democracy and free enterprise to ninety-eight human rights activists, dissidents, and refuseniks, including the Ziemans, in which he quoted from works of suppressed Russian authors. “Political leadership in a democracy requires seeing past the abstractions and embracing the vast diversity of humanity, and doing it with humility—listening as best you can, not just to those with high positions, but to the cacophonous voices of ordinary people, and trusting those millions of people, keeping out of their way,” he told them. “And the word we have for this is ‘freedom.’”
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Reagan returned to the United States in triumph, but the strain of the trip was evident in his appearance. He was exhausted. The leading-man face showed the crags and lines of his seventy-seven years; the lifeguard physique bowed slightly; his gait was slower, less exuberant, his stamina a quart low. Gorbachev had introduced him to passersby in Red Square as “Grandfather Reagan,” and the gibe was not entirely unwarranted.
Admirers spoke privately about an unprecedented third term, but such an option was out of the question—legally and physically. Reagan was tired, “tired of living in a fishbowl,” as his wife described Washington, and tired from the constant problem-solving that consumed the President of the United States. He was looking forward to the end of his administration, retiring with elder-statesman status to his Santa Barbara ranch and to a $2.5 million house in Bel-Air that eighteen wealthy friends had chipped in to buy for him. Otherwise, he spent the summer and fall of 1988 campaigning for a favored successor. George Bush, his faithful vice president and a man he’d grown to esteem, was locked in a tight contest with Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, and Ronald Reagan took to the stump with renewed vigor. “It rejuvenated him,” said White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater. The crowds he encountered were wildly enthusiastic, not as much for the candidacy of Bush as for the presence of their beloved president. His public image continued to excite and inspire.
Campaigning for Bush went toward strengthening his own legacy, which had been bruised by all the political scandals that had roiled his second term. And there were many. Beyond Iran-Contra and Ed Meese’s ethical lapses, an investigation by the House Government Operations Committee into the Department of Housing and Urban Development revealed a government agency “enveloped by influence peddling, favoritism, abuse, greed, fraud, embezzlement and theft.” The head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s waste-management program was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional inquiry. And the administration turned a blind eye to the imminent collapse of the savings-and-loan institutions that would eventually precipitate an expensive government scandal.
But none of it stuck to Ronald Reagan. Teflon man. His popularity was too strong. When it came to this president, the American public chose to look beyond the headlines, beyond the impropriety and the failure of Reaganomics. People were more likely to credit him with the economy’s returning to form after the inflation and malaise of the Carter years, the softening of relations with the Soviet Union, and the eventual fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Things were really much better in many ways, especially the economy, the grounds on which most people judge a president. Over the course of Reagan’s two terms, unemployment had fallen from 7.5 percent to 5.4 percent and the inflation rate dropped to 4.3 percent from 11.8 percent.
The country’s hunger for Reagan’s inspirational leadership and gentle mirth overwhelmed any specific bad news. He made people feel proud to be American. He embraced the handle Dr. Feelgood, which his critics hadn’t intended as a compliment, and his prescription to his patients was: resilience, hope, and faith. While accepting the nomination for president in 1980, Reagan had said, “More than anything else I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose.” And to a majority of Americans he’d delivered on his promise. He made the country feel better about itself; he restored its morale, its self-respect. Those were the intangibles. The more concrete results were harder to assess.
“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Or eight years, for that matter? Were Reagan’s famous question posed as his era ended, many people would answer yes. But it was an emotional answer. There were those who more fully considered the ledger of accomplishments versus trade-offs, the cold, hard columns of credits and debits, and they expressed skepticism. As a Republican banker told correspondent David Broder, “There is a widespread sense
that the prosperity some have gained in this decade has been purchased at a cost still to be reckoned.” The final tally would depend on the weight assigned to facts as opposed to feelings.
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One unassailable entry in the credit column was Ronald Reagan’s heart. It was big and expansive. He never stopped believing in “the American miracle” and the good people responsible for its achievements. He clung to the image of a nation populated by citizens “grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge” and governed by ordinary American “values and common sense.” In his final address to the nation, on January 11, 1989, he looked into the camera like a benevolent father and reflected on his romantic view of America—the “shining city upon a hill”—a place with “people of all kinds living in harmony and peace . . . and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” That was Ronald Reagan’s America, welcoming and inclusive.
In the few weeks that remained of his presidency some general housekeeping was required. Medals of Freedom were awarded to various worthy high achievers; token gifts were given to trusted staff members. Contrary to expectation, there would be no last-minute pardons for North, McFarlane, or Poindexter. “Reagan was very clear about that,” says Ken Duberstein, who became his fourth chief of staff, serving during the final few months after Howard Baker’s departure, “especially concerning Ollie North. That had been decided months before.” Despite the president’s insistence that North was an innocent, maybe even a hero, in service to his country, the First Lady put her foot down: a pardon would tarnish her husband’s place in history. Reagan acquiesced, leaving North’s fate in the hands of the courts.
Pardoning Lyn Nofziger and Mike Deaver would be easier for him to reconcile. Both men had been convicted of lobbying violations—Nofziger for illegal lobbying,* Deaver for perjury—but the crimes had been committed after they’d left his employ, which made them easier to forgive. Reagan’s instinct was to grant clemency to the former aides who had served him faithfully and for whom he had an abiding fondness. The pardons were a toss-up right down to the wire. Both men, however, sent word to the president that they considered themselves innocent of wrongdoing and thus ineligible for pardons.
George Steinbrenner was a different matter. The blustery New York Yankees owner had pleaded guilty in 1974 to making an illegal corporate contribution to Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign and obstructing justice, and he had petitioned the White House for a presidential pardon. Nancy Reagan firmly opposed it. “She thought he was a boor and had embarrassed her in front of her friends,” recalls A. B. Culvahouse, whose job it was to review each request. “But Steinbrenner had gone through the process. He’d done everything that people hadn’t done who swooped in at the last minute and wanted a pardon. He waited the requisite period, and he provided a lot of assistance to the FBI and intelligence agencies through his shipbuilding business, putting assets in place. So he’d earned it.” And the president, an unapologetic baseball fan, signed off on it.
Aside from packing up the Oval Office and the residence, most of Reagan’s remaining days were filled with affectionate tributes, gestures of thanks, and receptions. The Notre Dame football team showed up to pay its respects days after being voted the national champions, bearing a special gift: the faded blue-and-gold letter sweater that had belonged to George Gipp, the president’s muse. Members of Congress came by for a last handshake, to bid Reagan farewell. White House staff and Secret Service traipsed in for autographs and pictures.
But the president was reflective as well—even a bit melancholy. He was ready to leave the fishbowl, “totally prepared to turn the page and begin a new chapter,” according to Fred Ryan, who would become Reagan’s chief of staff in the new phase of his private life. Still, he was determined to drink in what was left of an extraordinary experience. Living in the White House, being president, was beyond anything he had imagined for himself. The view from the window of his study just off the Truman Balcony imbued him with this wonder; its awe-inspiring vista often absorbed him in a trancelike reverie. There, as he gazed across the South Lawn and the Ellipse all the way to the Potomac River Valley, stood the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. He was mesmerized by them and by what they represented to him personally. Contemplating his past and his future, it was hard to look away. An aide once came upon Reagan, staring out the window, not a muscle moving, seemingly in a hypnotic state. “What are you thinking about?” the aide asked the president, breaking his attention. Reagan smiled and whispered, “Everything.”
Everything. Eight years full of memories—decisions and dramatic crises, “virtually all of life’s highs and lows,” as he put it. It was an experience that Hollywood couldn’t have dreamed up, an experience he never foresaw—that no one foresaw—for the kid from Dixon, the Midwest sportscaster, the movie matinee idol, the television host. It was almost over now, time to move on.
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Ronald Reagan rose earlier than usual on January 20, 1989. He had breakfast, read the paper starting with the comics as always, and spent a few abstracted minutes puttering around his nearly vacant study. On his way to the Oval Office, he fed acorns, as always, to the swarm of friendly squirrels that scampered along the colonnade abutting the Rose Garden. Even the unique events of Inauguration Day entailed a measure of routine. They had been replayed at the White House thirty-eight times, ever since John Adams transferred the seat of power to Thomas Jefferson in 1801—peacefully, methodically, as always.
This morning, the Oval Office was bare, with the exception of the desk and rug. The artwork and photos had been removed from the walls; the gallery of mementos no longer lined the shelves and windowsills. The august desk crafted from the timber of the HMS Resolute had been swept clean of everything but the telephone, its drawers emptied of personal papers. Even the jar full of jelly beans was gone.
Colin Powell, the national security adviser, arrived at 9:30 a.m., as always, to deliver the daily intelligence briefing. This morning, only an abbreviated report was necessary. “Mr. President,” he said, “today the world is calm.” A final phone call was made to console Lyn Nofziger’s wife, whose daughter, Sue, was in the hospital dying of cancer. Word was passed that Orrin Hatch had called in a last-ditch effort to press for an Oliver North pardon, but Reagan only nodded without further response. Instead, he sat down at the desk and signed a letter of appreciation to Margaret Thatcher before scratching out a note to George Bush on a Post-it pad imprinted with the legend “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.” It was a simple, heartfelt message: “George I treasure the memories we share and wish you all the very best. You’ll be in my prayers. God bless you and Barbara. I’ll miss our Thursday lunches.” He slipped it into the top drawer of the desk, where he knew the next president would be sure to see it.
George Bush was on his way in to meet the president for the traditional ride together to the Capitol, for the swearing-in ceremony. “Here, boys,” Reagan said, extracting a card of white laminate from his pocket. “I won’t need this any more. Who do I give this to?” It contained the fail-safe code that, when inserted into the “football” carried by his military aide, ordered the launch of nuclear missiles. It had haunted him for the entire eight years he was in office, and he was eager to get it out of his hands. “You can’t get rid of it yet,” Powell explained. “It’s active until noon. Please put it back in your pocket.”
The president stood up, paused, and took a last look around, a “nostalgic moment,” he said, “of wanting to take one more look at the place that every morning I’ve been walking in.” Then he saluted and walked out the door.
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After the inaugural ceremony, Ronald and Nancy Reagan made their way to the east side of the Capitol where Marine One, renamed Nighthawk for the day because it was not in service as the presidential helicopter, w
as idling, ready to lift off. President and Mrs. Bush walked the Reagans to the chopper. “I was trying to keep the tears from flooding down my cheeks,” Bush admitted. At the beginning of his inaugural address, he had paid tribute to his predecessor, saying, “There is a man here who earned a lasting place in our hearts and in our history,” and he thanked Reagan for all “the wonderful things he had done” for America. Even for those listening who disagreed with him, it was impossible not to summon affection for a man who’d demonstrated such a deep-rooted love of country. Still, it irked Reagan’s most devoted admirers—and no one more devoted than his wife—when Bush made an appeal for “a kinder and gentler nation.” But that became water under the bridge when Reagan paused at the door to the helicopter and threw a crisp, respectful salute to President Bush.
Air Force One—renamed Special Air Mission 27000 for the day—was parked on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base, waiting to carry the former president and First Lady home to California. As a surprise to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the pilot of Nighthawk decided to make an unscheduled detour and swung the helicopter in a loop around the Capitol for a stunning view of the grounds and the monuments. Then he dipped it lower for a lap around the White House, where a line of moving vans was already unloading furniture for the new occupants. “Look, honey, there’s our little cottage,” citizen Reagan remarked as they hovered overhead. The helicopter then circled back over the Capitol one more time before heading out to Andrews.
