I mention this because it is an issue. Some agents think they can win over a protectee—and this gets back to those agents protecting a spouse—when they help with shopping bags or luggage. Others vehemently refuse, under any circumstance, to carry anything for a protectee. I always took the position that we were not supposed to do it, and shouldn’t if it interfered at all with our operational readiness. At the same time, there were instances when common courtesy and common sense prevailed. The Reagans never expected us to carry anything for them, but when we pulled into the ranch and they got out of the car with four bags, I wouldn’t just walk away. The president would always pick up one suitcase, but he couldn’t take all four at once, and Mrs. Reagan would always take her bag, so I would pick up the other two and put them inside the door. It was either that, which took three seconds, or leave the bags sitting by the car. It was no big deal, but that was really the only circumstance with the president where something like that happened. If the bags were, say, on the tarmac as we were getting onto Air Force One, I wouldn’t touch them, nor would any of the other agents.
When Nancy Davis married “Dutch” Reagan in 1952, some people in Hollywood knew him as “One-Take Reagan,” a tribute to his unswerving ability to get a scene right the first time. Just how good an actor he actually was I’ll leave for others to decide. At the inaugural gala in 1981, the new president and first lady were sitting in large chairs on a stage facing the audience while Frank Sinatra hosted the celebrations. At one point “Old Blue Eyes” looked out at the huge crowd, turned to the president, and told him, “Ronnie, if you could have drawn a crowd like this when you were an actor, you wouldn’t have had to get into politics.”
His one-take abilities never left him. Every week or so he would do a series of tapings with a TelePrompTer. All presidents do them, to wish someone happy birthday, or congratulate someone on an anniversary. This president would sit there and do half a dozen of them, straight off the TelePrompTer, and not miss a word. I never saw him do a second take. But he had a secret. I remember standing behind him many times as he gave speeches. His notes, on little half sheets of paper, were filled with pencil underlines and perpendicular lines where he was reminding himself to stop or to add emphasis. Ever the seasoned actor, he regarded his speech notes and TelePrompTer tapings just like movie scripts. He marked them up and rehearsed them so that he was sure to get it right the first time.
At the White House, we only occasionally saw some of the Reagans’ famous friends from those Hollywood days. When the Reagans threw Bob Hope an eightieth birthday party at the Kennedy Center, Hope stayed the night in the Lincoln Bedroom. Of all their chums, Hope was the most pompous, the most unfriendly, and the most dissimilar from them.
It was in California where they rekindled old friendships. Not so much at their ranch in Santa Barbara—Audrey Hepburn, gorgeously elegant in white Levi’s and a white shirt, was one of the few friends to visit them there—but in Los Angeles and Palm Springs. Their trips west depended entirely on the president’s schedule, but the schedule was usually arranged with certain California stops in mind—a week at Easter, three weeks in the summer, and a week or two in the fall and winter. The trip at Christmas was the one especially reserved for seeing friends.
Yet, traditionally, they always celebrated Christmas Day at the White House. Knowing that they would be spending ten days on the West Coast, the Reagans made a point of being in Washington on December 25, deliberately, so that the staff and agents could be at home with their own families. A day or two later, we’d head for Los Angeles, to the Century Plaza Hotel. Then, on the thirtieth, we’d move on to Palm Springs so that the Reagans could spend New Year’s Eve with Walter and Leonore Annenberg. He was the publisher of Triangle Publications, which included the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News, TV Guide, and the Daily Racing Form. He was also ambassador to Great Britain. Mrs. Annenberg was the administration’s chief of protocol. It was on this trip that the president played his annual round of golf. The Annenbergs had a private course encircling their estate. The president never played particularly well, although he was a good enough athlete to have played better golf. But that would have meant playing more often, and after an abandoned round at Augusta National in 1983, he refused to do that.
The president had been at Augusta in October of that year with Secretary of State George Shultz and a couple of other people when a guy in a pickup truck crashed through an exterior gate, charged into the pro shop with a gun, fired a round into the ceiling, and took a bunch of hostages. Word quickly reached the agents with the president, and he was moved off the course to a safe place.
One of the pro shop hostages was Lanny Wyles, the staff advance. Another was Dave Fisher, then the president’s personal aide. When the man with the gun demanded to see the president, Lanny and Dave persuaded him to free the other hostages. Dave then suggested that he could relay the man’s message directly to the president, so the man let Dave leave, much to the chagrin of Lanny, who was now the only hostage. Agents on the scene soon got involved, and the man surrendered. The incident received almost no press coverage because it happened the day after the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut and the day of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. But the president was so disturbed by the incident that he never played golf again on any course except the Annenbergs’. He said that he was giving up golf purposely because he was concerned about putting other people at unnecessary risk. His exact words were “Playing golf is not worth the chance that someone could get killed.”
The president’s one round of golf a year was followed by a gala New Year’s Eve party at which everybody, from the catering staff to all of the Reagans’ Hollywood pals, was subjected to our magnetometers. The only people who ever got close to them in Palm Springs without being magged were the agents on the detail, the Annenbergs, and once, but only once, five teenagers.
We were just arriving at the Annenbergs’ front gate for our two-day visit when the president spotted the teenagers holding up a placard that read “Please stop and say hello, Mr. President.” He leaned forward and asked, “Joe, do you think I can stop and say hi to the kids?”
The easiest thing would have been to say no. He would have understood and just waved at them. But I knew he’d like this, so I made the instant decision to stop the motorcade. As soon as we stopped, the detail agents were on the ground surrounding the limousine. I asked the president to wait in the car for a moment, then got out to satisfy myself that it was safe. There was no one else around, except those kids and us. We had police cars parked sideways at the entrance, had cops and agents everywhere, and there were no high buildings. I opened the back door and the president stepped out, but I left the door open and made sure he stayed right there next to it. He shook hands with the kids and signed their placard. Mrs. Reagan slid across the seat and said hello. The entire stop lasted two minutes. The kids, of course, never thought he would do it, and they were ecstatic. One of the White House photographers rushed around, took a couple of pictures, and then the president got back into the car. He waved good-bye, and in no time we were rolling onto the property. It’s arguable whether or not I should have made that stop. I’m sure those kids will never forget it. He might have remembered that moment for a long time, too. Anyway, how often is the president able to do things like that? I know it meant something to him because, when we got back into the car, the president leaned forward and said, “Thank you, Joe.”
There were two occasions when, at Mrs. Reagan’s behest, I secretly moved the two of them.
In 1986 we were at the Century Plaza and the Reagans were in the market for a house. Mrs. Reagan’s great friend Betsy Bloomingdale—of New York department store fame—was handling everything for them. It had to be kept a secret because if word got out that the house was for the Reagans, the price would shoot up. It was on this trip that Mrs. Bloomingdale told Mrs. Reagan she’d found someplace great, which was the house in Bel Air that they moved into when he left office.
Mr
s. Reagan came to me and said, “The president and I are going to see a house, and I don’t want anybody to know we’re going there.” I appreciated her concerns, but getting the president and the first lady out of the Century Plaza and moving them around Los Angeles without anybody finding out was not an easy thing to do.
First I needed to cover the national security base so that nobody would think that the president was out of reach. I phoned Don Regan, who was on the golf course, and said, if you need the president, call the command post. Next, I needed to get the president’s stewards off the floor, because they worked inside his suite. I told them that the president was going to have a private meeting and sent them downstairs. That left the president and first lady alone in the top-floor suite, with the Secret Service detail, the military aide, the doctor, and the WHCA officer. At the same time, I’d arranged for two armored off-the-record cars and one unmarked police car to wait for us in the basement garage, but I did not tell the police why I needed their car or where we were going.
The military aide, the doctor, the WHCA officer, the shift agents, and I escorted the Reagans down a back elevator and into the garage. None of the hotel staff saw us leave. Better still, the press didn’t get wind of it either. If they’d known what we were up to, they would have blown the story about the new house.
Once we got into the cars, and formed our little unmarked motorcade, we headed to Bel Air. The windows in those cars are tinted, but not totally blacked out, so I had to warn the president, “Please don’t wave to anybody.” We pulled into traffic, stopped at lights, and watched people walk by. We were as nondescript as possible. He didn’t wave, and nobody ever realized that the president and Mrs. Reagan were in the backseat.
Arriving at the house, I hurried the Reagans inside, where Mrs. Bloomingdale was waiting for them. We walked in and out of all the rooms, and at one point the president said, “I’d like to see the basement.” It’s the kind of thing that guys do, so the president, Mrs. Bloomingdale, and I went downstairs. He checked out the empty basement, then wondered out loud, “Is it oil or gas heat?” I had to stop myself from laughing because I could see from his expression that he was serious. I have no idea what possible difference it could make, except maybe he thought it was one of those questions he needed to ask. But then, for those ten minutes, he wasn’t the president of the United States, he was just a guy buying a house.
Once the Reagans had seen the house, we left Mrs. Bloomingdale there, got back into the cars, and returned to the hotel, stopping at lights, the same way we’d come. We got the Reagans upstairs to the suite, and not even the press secretary knew they’d been gone.
The second time I sneaked them away from the press, I wasn’t quite so lucky.
It was Sunday, over the Fourth of July weekend 1986, and we were at Camp David. Just before we boarded the helicopter for the flight to the White House, Mrs. Reagan said quietly to me, “I’d like to see you in the residence after we land.”
We arrived on the south lawn at around two o’clock that afternoon and I followed them upstairs. When the president went into the residence, Mrs. Reagan told me that she and the president were going to have dinner that night at the Jockey Club to celebrate her birthday with two old friends, Charles and Mary Jane Wick. Mrs. Reagan now said, very emphatically, “This is a private dinner, just the four of us and I don’t want anyone to know about this. No press. No one.”
The Wicks had been their neighbors in California back in the fifties. He was a former bandleader, producer of the 1961 film Snow White and the Three Stooges, and had been cochairman of the 1981 Presidential Inaugural Committee. As soon as Reagan was installed in the White House, he appointed Wick to run the United States Information Agency and Radio Free Europe. Mrs. Wick was part of Mrs. Reagan’s inner circle of pals, which included Betsy Bloomingdale.
Getting the Reagans out of a hotel without anybody knowing it was one thing. Getting them out of the White House without anybody knowing was a real trick. Back downstairs, I told the shift that I would be out for a little while. Then I got into my car and drove to the Jockey Club, which is in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Massachusetts Avenue. The place was empty, and I had to walk around to find the maître d’. I identified myself and asked him if he had a dinner reservation that evening in the name of Charles Wick.
He confirmed that he did. “A table for four at seven-thirty.”
I asked, “Do you know who the other two people are?” He said he didn’t, and I said, “Sit down.” I told him that President and Mrs. Reagan would be joining the Wicks and warned him that this had to be absolutely private. I said, “If this information leaves here and the press finds out about this, we’re not coming.” I made him understand that a press leak would be taken very seriously.
In the end, my anxieties were unwarranted, because the man was very cooperative. He showed me how the Jockey Club was divided into three sections and how he could set the third section aside for that single table of four. It was perfect, because it was at the rear and was hidden by a large row of plants, so that nobody else in the restaurant could see who was dining there. Best of all, there was a back door, so they could get in and out without anyone else seeing them. I looked out the back door and found a fire escape leading down to a service bay and a parking lot. I liked that because we could stage the cars there without attracting attention.
The maître d’ and I worked out all the arrangements. Because WHCA wouldn’t have time to install a separate phone line in, I told him that a WHCA officer would have to sit in his office literally holding the phone with the line open for as long as the president was there. He said that was no problem. I then told him I’d need a few other tables for dinner that evening, preferably in the middle section, so that agents, the military aide, and the doctor would be within a few feet of the president. I said I’d also need an agent in the kitchen. None of that was a problem either.
Returning to the White House, I assured Mrs. Reagan that everything was arranged, and even warned her not to wear heels that night because she’d have to climb up a fire escape. I phoned Don Regan at home, explained that I was taking the president and Mrs. Reagan out that night and said, “I can’t tell you where we’re going, but if you need to get in touch, call W-16.” He didn’t ask any questions.
The motorcade would be two armored off-the-record cars, but instead of having them waiting for us at the West Wing, I had them meet us at the East Wing entrance, about as far away as I could possibly get from the press offices. I then briefed the doctor, the military aide, and the WHCA officer. I explained that the Reagans were going to have dinner at the Jockey Club, that the military aide had to change into civilian clothes, and that they couldn’t call anybody or tell anybody about this because if word got out, we would all get fired. I assured them that I’d made all the correct arrangements and that there was nothing to worry about. And I reiterated several times, “Don’t tell anybody.”
I briefed the agents on the detail, explaining the evening and telling them how we would get the president and first lady out of the White House, into the restaurant, out of the restaurant, and back to the White House. I sent one agent over to the hotel to sit in the lobby, sent two more over to the restaurant to have dinner, and sent another agent into the kitchen. I contacted the Washington police and our CAT teams and arranged backup.
At 7:15, I brought the president and the first lady down from the residence. As we stepped off the elevator, he instinctively turned to the right, toward the West Wing. I said, “No, Mr. President, this way, please,” and led them out the door of the East Wing. We got into the first of the two off-the-record cars, the detail agents got into the second car, and with two unmarked police cars, pulled out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. As I had in Los Angeles, I reminded the president, “Please just sit back and don’t wave to anybody.”
But this time he stared at me with a very concerned expression and asked, “Is something going on that I don’t know about?”
I didn’t want to
blow the surprise, so I looked at Mrs. Reagan. She read my thoughts and said to her husband, “This is my idea, Ronnie.”
We made our way through Sunday night Washington traffic and arrived unseen at the rear of the Ritz-Carlton. We climbed the fire escape and stepped into the back section of the restaurant where the Wicks were waiting.
Toward the end of their meal, the maître d’ came up to me to say, “We’ve had people come into this restaurant, dine and leave, and never realize that the president was there.”
When the meal was over, we left by the fire escape, got into the cars, and headed back to the White House. I decided that instead of sneaking in through the East Wing, we might as well just drive through the Northwest Gate. I was mildly concerned that word might have leaked out that the president was missing from the White House and that there could be cameras waiting for us, but it was too late for the press to spoil Mrs. Reagan’s birthday surprise. As it turned out, no one saw us.
I was home by eleven o’clock, and within fifteen minutes my Signal phone rang. That’s a direct line from the White House and on the end of it was a seriously unhappy press secretary, Larry Speakes. He demanded to know, “How could you do this? You’ve violated a very strict agreement that we have with the press about taking the president out of the White House without a press pool coming along.”
Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service Page 8
