Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  The day of the primary, Nancy Reagan, who was nursing a head cold, was deputized to ask Sears, Black, and Lake to meet with Ronnie in his suite at 2 P.M. The message came back that they were having lunch with several reporters, but that they could meet with Reagan at 2:30.85

  As the three walked into what turned out to be their final meeting, Black suddenly knew it was over when he saw Mrs. Reagan sitting in a chair off in a corner of the room, instead of around the coffee table with the rest of them as she'd always done. She would not meet Black's gaze, or Sears's, or Lake's.

  The three didn't know it, but Reagan had just that day received a letter from Paul Laxalt relaying conservatives' renewed complaints against Sears.

  They sat down in the third-floor suite, the air thick with tension. Reagan was not smiling. He was holding a sheet of paper. Also present was the mysterious Casey, who said little. Reagan started by saying, “Well, fellas, I've been thinking about a change.”86 With that he handed the paper to Sears. It was a press release written by Hannaford announcing the “resignations” of the three. Hannaford had been so intent on secrecy that he kept his notes and the drafts of the release locked in his briefcase.87

  Sears read it and then said softly, “I'm not surprised,” but in fact he was. He handed it to Black. Instead of reading it, Black put the press release face down on the coffee table and said, “Wait a minute—before I read this, I quit.”88 The in-house coup was over in a matter of minutes. Lake and Black were devastated but they felt they owed Sears their loyalty. As they left the Reagans' suite, Charlie kissed Mrs. Reagan.89 So did Lake, who also muttered bitterly, “Governor, Ed Meese manipulates you, he manipulates you.”90

  As Sears departed, Nancy Reagan asked, “Can we be friends?” He replied ominously, “That depends on you. If we have to defend ourselves then we will defend ourselves.”91

  THOSE INVOLVED IN THE plot to oust Sears had done the impossible in politics: they'd kept a secret. Reagan had agonized for a month over the problems, only talking with a trusted few.

  Sears was truly stunned at his firing. He had thought he would be asked to stay as the campaign's chief strategist, with Casey taking over the day-to-day operations. But he had said only a few days earlier about the prospect of Casey's taking over, “You're talking about someone coming in as a co-equal, that's just not going to happen.”92 In fact, it had been reported that Sears had already threatened to quit if Casey joined the campaign.

  Reagan, supposedly the passive instrument of John Sears, had concocted much of the scheme to fire his manager after talking with his son Mike several days earlier.93 Reagan had been aware of how the media saw him and Sears and he didn't like it one bit. He wrote one supporter, “I've read all the eastern press … that Sears is pulling the strings and I'm the puppet.”94

  Sears, Lake, and Black went quickly to their rooms, packed, and left the state. Casey watched from a window as they walked across the parking lot to their car. John Sears had discovered too late that the fault was not in the star but in the underling.

  Sears's and Lake's principal assistants quit in a show of loyalty. Black's assistant, Neal Peden, assumed she'd been fired and left with the others. She was delighted to learn later that she had not been fired after all and was asked to return to the campaign.

  After the firings, Linda Gosden, Lake's aide, took it upon herself to confront Nancy Reagan in a hallway and scream several obscenities at her.95 Peden, an attractive Mississippian and loyal Reaganite, said she was “horrified” when Gosden regaled the others over her confrontation with Mrs. Reagan.96 Though her father had known Reagan in Hollywood, Gosden had a history of rubbing the Reagans the wrong way. Several days earlier, after spotting Bill Casey in an elevator, she pointedly asked Reagan about the matter just before the candidate was to give a speech. “It was not a good time to bring up the subject of staff tensions,” Hannaford later wrote. “The conversation upset him, something that was noticed in his speech delivery by longtime Reagan-watchers among the news people covering the event.”97

  Meese was not in the room for the execution because he, like others in the conspiracy, was busy making phone calls around the country to Reaganites and reporters, “letting them know what was happening.”98 A list of VIPs was assembled for Reagan to call that afternoon. It included William F. Buckley, Laxalt, and Jack Kemp.99 Talking points were compiled for the Reagan team as they hurriedly made their calls.100

  Hannaford had aides deliver Reagan's bombshell to the flabbergasted national media at 3 P.M. in the form of a press release, just moments after the triple firing. Two hours later Hannaford held a press conference. He said the resignations were the result of a need for “a sharp reduction in expenses and a restructuring of our organization.”101 All were under strict orders not to cast aspersions on Sears, Lake, and Black. The three knew too much and were media favorites, and the campaign did not need to create any fresh problems for Reagan.

  Lyn Nofziger bitingly said of Sears's firing, “They finally got Rasputin, didn't they?”102 Appropriately, the foreign-policy adviser, Allen, called their successful coup a “Leninist plot.”103

  William J. Casey would immediately replace Sears as campaign chairman, but a triumvirate of Casey, Meese, and Wirthlin would in fact run the renewed campaign, coordinating with Laxalt. Hannaford would temporarily replace Lake until a full-time spokesman, Ed Gray, could be secured.

  Years later, Meese reviewed Sears's undoing. “I think John was unable to move beyond the thinking of the Nixon campaign in 1968,” in which “decisions were made in smoke-filled rooms. John … didn't communicate. He would do things without telling the Governor.” Meese added, “He didn't like Lyn [Nofziger] being around, he didn't like Mike [Deaver] being around, he didn't want me around.”104 Reagan had his own take on Sears in a conversation with Theodore White: “I don't fault his ability at political analysis, but he wanted to do everything.… Morale was at zero … There was … a feeling that I was just kind of a spokesman for John Sears.”105

  Casey had never run a national campaign. In fact, he had only performed minor tasks in the Eisenhower and Nixon campaigns. But he had been the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and held various other posts during the Nixon administration. Most important, he had Reagan's vote of confidence.106

  The only apparent problem with Casey was that no one ever seemed to understand what he was saying. He quickly picked up—behind his back—the moniker “Mumbles.”107 Another benefit to selecting the balding and gray-haired Casey was that he looked much older than the Gipper, though in fact he was two years younger.

  Not wasting time, other campaigns began to make overtures toward Sears, including, ironically, Dave Keene in the Bush operation. It had only been a year since Sears had hung Keene out to dry, prompting the young campaign aide to angrily leave Reagan for Bush. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.

  WITH HIS REMARKABLE COMEBACK in New Hampshire, Ronald Reagan had staved off what had seemed his sure political death. At the same time, in one swift action, he had rid himself of the source of so many of the mistakes that had hampered his campaign: John Sears. He still had won fewer than two dozen delegates and had 976 to go before he'd have enough to claim the Republican nomination at the Detroit convention in July. Certainly a long road lay ahead, and many hurdles remained. But he was finally off and running.

  Only two days before the New Hampshire primary, Reagan had told listeners, “This isn't a campaign anymore. It's is a crusade to save this nation.”108

  Millions of Americans seemed to agree.

  11

  UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

  “You fellas are going to call me whatever you call me and I have a hunch that you are going to settle on ‘ front-runner.’”

  The Columbia Broadcasting System, known as the “Tiffany Network” for its high standards of programming, made some news of its own in February 1980. The network announced with poignant fanfare that the grand old man of the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkit
e, who had become permanent anchorman in 1962, would retire in 1981, to be replaced by longtime reporter Dan Rather.1 A torch was passing for a generation that had grown up with “Uncle Walter.” Cronkite had been voted time and again “the most trusted man in America.” Cronkite was so revered that in 1972 the floundering Democratic nominee, George McGovern, had pleaded with him to become his vice-presidential running mate. Cronkite wisely demurred. After March of 1981, America would no longer hear Cronkite's signature sign-off, “And that's the way it is.”

  Cronkite, a seafaring aficionado with a summer home on Martha's Vineyard, cherished his sailboat, On Assignment, and on more than one afternoon he would depart CBS headquarters in New York, saying, “If anyone asks where I am, tell them I'm on assignment.” For millions, Cronkite had been their captain, their calming presence, their voice of reason during the storms of the 1960s. Many remembered his hours upon hours of steady coverage of the assassination and funeral of President Kennedy; only once had he broken on air, slightly, when first announcing the death of his friend on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. Many others recalled his unprecedented step in the wake of the Tet Offensive in 1968: he editorialized on air against the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson remorsefully reflected that if he'd lost Cronkite, he'd “lost Middle America.” Johnson shortly withdrew from the 1968 presidential campaign.2

  In the morning, American kids' touchstone on CBS was Captain Kangaroo, played by the gray-haired and mustachioed Bob Keeshan, and in the evening, their parents' lodestone was Cronkite, who also had gray hair and a moustache. They served as reassuring father figures in an uncertain time

  WITHIN A MATTER OF hours after its primary, New Hampshire's citizens were heaving sighs of relief as the quadrennial political stalkers left for home. Finally, no more volunteer door knockers, no more phone calls at all hours, no more junk mail. At the now abandoned Reagan headquarters in Manchester, coffeepots were still half-full and uneaten pastries were strewn about.

  Calm had returned to the Granite State.

  Except at the Nashua Telegraph, where they were still smarting over the debate disaster. Angry readers flooded the newspaper with letters, denouncing Jon Breen for being rude to Ronald Reagan. The paper published a series of post-debate editorials telling its side of the story. It revealed that Jerry Carmen and John Sears had conspired to install another moderator, George Roberts, Speaker of the State House, to replace Breen should the need arise. It was becoming clear how the cunning Reagan folks had set up poor George Bush in Nashua.

  Never at a loss for a shiv, Carmen said that primary day in New Hampshire must have been “too cold for silk stockings.”3 The 6'3” Bush buttonholed the 5'6” Carmen and said he didn't like what Carmen was saying about him.4 Nothing doing. It was impossible to intimidate Carmen and he poured it on Bush with even more glee.

  GEORGE WILL HAD THE final say on the soon-to-be legendary Nashua debate. “Americans are getting angry and seeking authenticity, and Reagan gave them authentic anger.… When Reagan is aroused, he is the most effective campaigner in living memory.”5

  Reagan left New Hampshire on a high. Before he headed on to continue his newly resurgent campaign, he delivered a message to the media, who had been so surprised by his landslide victory. Smiling broadly, he told reporters, “You fellas are going to call me whatever you call me and I have a hunch that you are going to settle on ‘front-runner.’”6

  There was more good news for the Reagan team: the Secret Service's mascot had been found. “Bobo,” the mechanical monkey that played Willie Nelson's hit song “On the Road Again,” had been “lost” several weeks earlier, said campaign aide Cindy Tapscott. In fact, Reagan and two young aides, Colin Clark and Mark Hatfield Jr., had engaged in their own little prank: they had kidnapped Bobo. Clark sent the Secret Service a ransom note signed by the “Bobo Liberation Army.” The agents couldn't find Bobo—because Reagan, in on the gag, had mirthfully hid the stuffed monkey in his suitcase.7

  Reagan may have been laughing, but establishment Republicans were tearing their hair out over his rejuvenated campaign. They feared that Reagan, without Sears's moderating presence, would run wildly to the right and become a second Barry Goldwater, bringing a crashing defeat for the party in the fall. They thought George Bush and Howard Baker had blown it in New Hampshire and the only way to stop Reagan now was to get Gerald Ford into the race. Ford himself started making noises about coming in—again.

  Bush and Baker saw things differently. Bush showcased his sense of humor in acknowledging the New Hampshire setback, saying that although he'd taken it “on the chin,” in truth it seemed “I took it a little lower.”8 But he brushed himself off and Bush gamely challenged Reagan, saying, “I'm going out there and wear him down.”9 Clearly, Bush still thought that Reagan didn't have the stamina for the campaign trail and that it was all some kind of athletic competition rather than a contest of ideas and leadership.

  Baker, for his part, believed that if Bush faltered even more, then he himself might emerge as the moderate alternative to Reagan.

  Overlooked in all this discussion of Reagan's conservatism and the need for moderation was an extensive New York Times poll of voters nationwide, which found that 40 percent called themselves “conservative,” while only 22 percent said they were “liberal.”10

  About the only certainty in the Republican race was that Bob Dole was near to dropping out. He'd collected roughly 0.4 percent of the vote in New Hampshire—around 600 votes—and as a result, was disqualified from receiving any more matching funds from the FEC under its convoluted qualifying plan.11

  Within the Reagan campaign, great uncertainty remained over the matter of John Sears, Charlie Black, and Jim Lake. Though the three had so far gone quietly, they had many friends in the national media and could make things very unpleasant for Reagan. They also had allies in Republican circles, including twelve members of the Reagan campaign who had resigned in protest over their dismissal, such as Nick Ruwe, the scheduling director. More angry staffers were rumored to be on the verge of resigning in protest over the firings. Some worried that they'd be tagged as being loyal to Charlie Black and not Reagan and would be fired as a result.

  The Reagan team hastily called a two-hour meeting at Washington's Dulles Airport to avert a new staff crisis. Present were Reagan, Mrs. Reagan, Bill Casey, Ed Meese, and the field staff—Roger Stone, Herb Harmon, Keith Bulen, Frank Donatelli, Frank Whetstone, Andy Carter, Kenny Klinge, Rick Shelby, George Clark, Ernie Angelo, Don Devine, Lou Kitchin, Paul Manafort, Dale Duvall, Don Totten, and others. Lee Atwater and Lorelei Kinder did not attend, but they were also part of this crew. This was the crème de la crème of GOP organizers in 1980, and perhaps the most impressive group of political operatives ever assembled. They had come to Reagan because of conservatism and eschewed silly, puerile tactics. Dignity for their candidate and their campaign was important. Reagan utterly agreed.

  But Black had recruited many of these operatives, and some directly confronted Reagan over the shake-up. Black was their friend and the meeting grew contentious. Mrs. Reagan sharply rebuked several who challenged Reagan over the firings.12 Whetstone, one of those who challenged the candidate over the firing of Sears, Lake, and Black, had something else he wanted to get off his chest: “Ron, when are you going to get a hearing aid so you can hear people?”

  Reagan, momentarily stunned by the attacks, pulled himself together and addressed the group with a little pep talk, but he “got a little bit pissed off a couple of times,” Shelby recalled.13

  Then Casey stood up and gave them unshirted hell about whether the meeting was necessary, warning them about future budget and personnel cuts, essentially playing bad cop to Reagan's good cop. This group had seen that ploy before and they weren't buying it. They wanted to know whether they still had jobs, and Reagan assured them they did, that he'd made a mistake in Iowa. Klinge recalled that Reagan said, “I want you all around. You guys have done, and gals, have done, [a great] job for me.”14 The meeting ended with
the staff mostly satisfied; they had had their chance to blow off steam.

  Lyn Nofziger was due to come back aboard the campaign in short order, but not before he wrote a long piece for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner dumping all over poor John Sears. Nofziger then reprinted the article in the March newsletter of Citizens for the Republic, sending it out to tens of thousands.15

  Nofziger was the Michael Corleone of the conservative movement. He didn't want to wipe out everybody—just his “enemies.”

  MANY IN THE MEDIA wrote derisively that the new team taking over for Reagan was inadequate to the task. One Sears-smitten reporter, Loye Miller, wrote that Meese, Casey, and Dick Wirthlin were “junior varsity” and that the campaign would “float dead in the water” for a time without Sears and company.16

  The American voter in 1980 was becoming more aware of front-line political operatives. Political-operatives-as-celebrities were a new phenomenon in politics. It had taken off in 1976, starting with the media's love affair with Carter's aides and certified characters Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell. The two made the cover of Rolling Stone. Behind the scenes were hundreds more, however, who toiled in anonymity for their candidates, including the personal assistants. Bush's was a pleasant young man, David Bates, who called himself a “gentleman's gentleman.”17 David Fischer did likewise for the Gipper. Their jobs were critical, as it was up to them to make sure their candidate was where he should be and when. To ensure that their clothing was cleaned and pressed. To get them a glass of water, hold their coats, write down names, or get them a bite to eat when needed. It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't highly paid, but it was important. In later campaigns, they would become known as “body men.” They routinely put in eighteen-hour days and it wasn't unusual for the exhausted traveling staff to wake up not knowing what day it was or what city they were in.