Elizabeth or Flo signaled the president every time a minute had elapsed so that he could speed up or slow down as necessary. That was because the former radio announcer prided himself on delivering the speech in exactly five minutes and had rehearsed it several times the day before, marking in bold black pen where each minute was, or should be.
When it was over, and the “We’re clear!” was shouted by the WHCA technician, the president would look at his watch and ask Elizabeth or Flo how he had done in terms of timing. It was important to him to be exactly on the mark, and 99 percent of the time, he was. Then both Reagans rose from their chairs, thanked everyone, and off they went to lunch in Aspen.
There were some differences when the address was delivered from the White House. From time to time in the second term, Jim Kuhn, the president’s personal aide, asked me to fill in for him on Saturdays when the president was delivering the weekly radio address from the Oval Office rather than Camp David. This involved waiting on the ground floor for the elevator from the residence to meet the president when he came down around eleven forty-five, escorting him into the Oval Office, making sure everything was all set up for the live radio address, and, when it was over, escorting the president back to the residence, including riding with him up in the elevator to the family quarters.
On one such occasion, President Reagan delivered his weekly radio address without incident, and everything seemed fine. The day before, Jim had asked me to get the president to sign some routine correspondence after the radio address. He handed me a folder before he left that Friday evening. After the radio address, rather than have the president do so in front of the people assembled in the Oval Office (radio network, military technicians, other staff, Secret Service, and so on), I thought it better to have him attend to the paperwork once we got upstairs. So I took the folder with me as we walked along the colonnade onto the ground floor of the White House and took the elevator up to the family quarters. I walked with the president into his personal office, which was located next to the Reagans’ bedroom, and said, “Mr. President, there are a couple of routine letters we need to get you to sign,” opened the folder, and handed him a pen. He signed the letters. I said, “Thank you very much, sir, have a nice weekend,” and departed. I walked back to the West Wing, put the folder of signed letters back on Jim’s desk, and went home for what was a quiet weekend.
On Monday, I arrived at the White House at the usual time, went to my office, and got down to work. At around ten, Jim called me on the private direct line between our offices and said, “He wants to see you.” I said, “I’m sure he does,” or something to that effect, because I thought Jim was scamming me. So I continued about my business.
An hour or so later, Jim buzzed me again and said in a more plaintive tone, “He really does want to see you.” This time, I could tell he wasn’t joking, so I said I would come by soon. Still, I could not imagine what the president would possibly want to see me about. It was completely out of character for Ronald Reagan to summon anyone to the Oval Office like that. Nonetheless, after about twenty to thirty minutes, I put on my suit coat and walked down the hall to the area outside the Oval Office, where Jim and the president’s personal secretary, Kathy Osborne, had their desks.
Jim was not there, so I told Kathy that Jim said the president wanted to see me. She looked perplexed and said, “He does?” She got up from her desk, walked into the Oval Office, and then came back out no more than thirty seconds later. Sounding surprised, she told me that the president did indeed want to see me and that I should go right in. So I marched into the Oval Office. President Reagan was at his desk having his lunch and reading some briefing materials. I said, “Mr. President, I understand you wanted to see me, sir.”
He looked up. “Oh yes, Mark, come in, please.”
I approached his desk, and he said, “Say, on Saturday, you had me sign some letters, and”—at this point, I got a huge knot in my stomach because I was sure I had screwed up something—“I did so with the pen that you had given me, but I didn’t give it back to you.” He then opened the top drawer of the Resolute desk—used by several presidents, the iconic desk is a double pedestal partners’ desk, made from wood from the British ship HMS Resolute and given to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880—took out the pen I had given him to sign the letters two days earlier, and said, “I didn’t know if it was special to you for some reason or not, and I felt bad about having kept it over the weekend. I was going to call you about it, but I didn’t want you to have to come back into the office to get it, so here it is. I’m sure sorry if it was something you needed or wanted to have.” He then handed me the pen—a black felt-tip that I had bought at a local drugstore. I said, “Mr. President, thank you so much. It really wasn’t, but I sure appreciate it.” He smiled and said, “Well, all right.” I mumbled something about my getting back to work and left the Oval Office. I wish I’d kept that pen.
The president’s attention to the details surrounding the radio addresses was impeccable—but then, it had to be. Sometimes the topic of the addresses was a policy proposal to which the president wanted to give a special focus, and sometimes, like this weekend’s address, it was on the most serious matters of life and death.II
As a break from the tension surrounding the downed Korean airliner, the Reagans had prepared a special treat. Tonight’s feature was not a box office juggernaut but the Blake Edwards film Curse of the Pink Panther. The movie was an effort at a comeback for the once-popular Pink Panther series, but it was without its familiar and beloved actor Peter Sellers, who played the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Sellers died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980 at age fifty-four. (Sellers had appeared in all five previous Pink Panther movies, although 1982’s Trail of the Pink Panther was pieced together using footage of him from previous films.)
There was one, and only one, reason the Reagans wanted to see the film, though. One of the costars was their daughter. Patti, then a thirty-year-old actress whose credits included guest spots on TV shows such as Fantasy Island and Hart to Hart, played the character Michelle Chauvin, a French newscaster. Usually the Reagans preferred to watch movies in concentrated silence. But Mrs. Reagan broke the quiet when their daughter’s name appeared on the screen.
She turned to the president, and in a voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, said, “See that, honey? Patricia Davis,” in a slightly teasing manner. Davis, of course, was Mrs. Reagan’s maiden name. There was an unmistakable tone of pride when she saw that her daughter was using it for her acting career. The president had no reaction.
I never spoke with him about it so I don’t know if he wanted Patti to pursue an acting career, but my guess is he was proud of her. Still, family members in the same demanding profession can experience some difficulties. Even the president and Mrs. Reagan were not immune to them. Yet only once in the more than three decades or so that I knew them did I detect a sense of professional “rivalry” between them.
In the late summer of 1986, we were at the Reagan ranch, near Santa Barbara, when an NBC-TV news crew came to film a special on the First Lady, hosted by Chris Wallace. With the camera rolling, the president and Mrs. Reagan were having lunch together on the front patio of their small adobe home, as they often did. They were seated at a little round table, on which were some raw vegetables, sandwiches, chips, and soft drinks. Mrs. Reagan began the conversation with her husband about something innocuous—it could have even been the weather—but try as she might, she could not get him to engage on any subject. Earlier in the day, he had been his usual genial, witty self, but now he gave only polite one-word responses—“yep” and “nope”—to whatever she said, and then would munch on a carrot or celery stick. He did not seem interested in conducting a conversation. This uncharacteristic behavior went on for several minutes, until we escorted the NBC crew to another location on the ranch. Later that day, I asked another aide who had also witnessed the scene what was up. “He didn’t want to be a co
star in her show,” he explained.
Like all married couples, the Reagans could have their disagreements and even bicker occasionally, but it was rare, really. In all the time I spent around them, I witnessed only one full-blown argument. In 1989, the seventy-eight-year-old former president had returned from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he’d undergone head surgery to resolve a subdural hematoma caused by his being thrown by a wild horse a few months earlier. We were at their home in Los Angeles. Former president Reagan’s doctors had told him to ease back into his routine but to take it slowly. He wanted to go to the barbershop, have a trim, and maybe get a manicure. Because the barber would have to touch the president’s head, Mrs. Reagan was uncomfortable with the idea and did not think he should go just yet. But he was adamant. They argued about it in raised voices. They weren’t screaming at each other—they never did that—but they were arguing. He said, “I put up with an awful lot around here, and I want to go because I enjoy it.” She was exasperated and said finally, “Then do whatever you darn please.” Needless to say, it was awkward as heck for me to be there, and I wanted to disappear.
The next day I was at the house again for some reason or another; probably for a meeting about upcoming events. The president pulled me aside just inside the foyer and said, “Say, Mark, you know those hostilities that you witnessed yesterday between Nancy and me, well, that’s all over now.” I replied, “Mr. President, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know, the hostilities yesterday with regard to the barbershop and all,” he said.
“Sir, I do not recall anything of the kind,” I insisted, wearing a smile. He looked at me, winked, and said with a big smile, “Well, all right, then.”
There were other times I found myself stuck in the middle of some awkwardness between Mr. and Mrs. Reagan. Once in the postpresidency years, we were getting ready to leave on a trip. In a few days, Ronald Reagan was to tape an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News about his memoir, An American Life. He had often referred to that project as “a monkey on my back,” but he understood that his record of the White House years was important for history, and he spent hours with pen and pad writing it out. Now that it was published, the usual round of interviews was scheduled, including the sit-down with Walters due to take place when we got back. Late on the day before we left Los Angeles, Mrs. Reagan called me and in a very serious voice said, “Mark, Ronnie is talking with Barbara about the book in a few days, and you have to make sure he sees it before. He has to look at it on the plane tomorrow. There’s plenty of time.” “Of course, Mrs. Reagan,” I replied.
After Reagan’s speech—the topic and location are lost to me now—we got back on the plane for the long flight home to LA. In my briefcase was the book, and I knew what I had to do. I moved from my seat on a bench on the small plane to a seat right in front of President Reagan’s, opposite a small table. He was reading a news magazine (and, as was his usual habit, removing the annoying subscription cards he found there). He knew I had come over to him for a reason but chose not to look up.
“Mr. President,” I said meekly. Without putting down the magazine, he looked up and said, “Yes,” in a very uncharacteristic “What the heck do you want?” tone.
“Well, sir, as you know, you are scheduled to talk with Barbara Walters next week about your book and—”
“So?” he interrupted with unmistakable irritation.
“Well, sir, I just thought it would be a good idea for you to see the book before that.” I pulled it out of my briefcase and placed it in front of him on the much-too-small table between us. He glared at me. I wished I had a parachute.
Then I had an idea. I picked up the book and said, “Mr. President, do you see this book?”
“Yes, Mark, I see it,” he answered with obvious annoyance.
“Sir,” I said a bit more loudly and pointedly than probably necessary, “do you see it? Are you looking at it?”
Again, an icy glare. “Yes, darn it, I see it. What’s your point?” he asked, in a rare tone of displeasure.
Pronouncing each word carefully and slowly, I then said, “Okay, so if anyone—for example, a lady who lives in Bel Air—asks, you have seen your book, right?” I held my breath.
He got it. Ronald Reagan smiled that smile, cocked his head, looked me in the eye, and said, “I sure have.”
“Great, thanks, sir.” I slipped the book back in my briefcase and returned quickly to my seat. He went back to reading his magazine, and I took a nap. Just before we landed, I sat down across from him again, looked him in the eye, and said, “Now, sir, if anyone asks, you’ve seen the book, right?” He winked and said, “You bet.” Sure enough, just before the interview with Barbara Walters, Mrs. Reagan asked me if her husband had seen the book. “Yes, of course,” I replied.
Even if they had the occasional moment of tension, the Reagans were loving parents, and they were nothing but proud to see Patti in her screen debut. That was certainly the highlight of that particular viewing. The Pink Panther movie, frankly, was not great. I won’t bore you with the plot, such as it was. Reviews were not kind. “Not unfunny, and not really an offense to the memory of Inspector Clouseau,” the New York Times opined. “It’s merely a movie with very little reasons to exist.”
Although her role was small, the Times could not help but be vicious toward Patti’s performance. “Also in the large cast, inexplicably, is Patricia Davis, President Reagan’s daughter, playing a French newscaster,” the reviewer wrote. “Not even those undiscriminating enough to find this ‘Pink Panther’ film as charming as any of the others will imagine that this newscaster’s French accent is genuine.”
But something else about the film lingered in my mind. It offered a rare insight into the president’s own feelings about himself. After the movie ended, being the loyal staff that we were, we all took our turn singing Patti’s praises.
In a desire to please the Reagans, someone (not I) made the ridiculously fawning comment “She should get an Oscar for that performance”—a remark that pretty much everyone recognized for its absurdity. Including the Reagans.
Mrs. Reagan laughed politely. But the president said nothing. He looked a little surprised by the suggestion, and I sensed there was something about it that gnawed at him. Years later, I would learn why. The subject of an Oscar was a sore one for Ronald Reagan. He was realistic enough to know that none of his movie performances was of that caliber, although he was justifiably proud of his acting in many of his films. In the buildup to his first summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1985, the president had been bothered by references to him in the USSR media as a “B-movie actor.” During a walk with the Soviet leader, Reagan asked that he tell one of Russia’s leading critics of American culture, Georgi Arbatov, that his roles “weren’t all B-movies.” He suggested the Soviets see his performance in Kings Row.III
Arbatov was not the only person to speak critically about President Reagan’s movie career. In 1987 the president welcomed Jim Harbaugh, the acclaimed quarterback for the University of Michigan Wolverines (and today their head coach), to the Oval Office. My school, the George Washington University, did not have a football program, so, by default, I became a fan of the University of Michigan, where my sister went for her undergraduate degree. While in the White House, I was impressed by Harbaugh, who went on to a fourteen-year career in the National Football League as a player. At one point in the second term, I learned from our advance team that he was to be at some event President Reagan would be attending in Michigan. I hoped to meet Jim there. But as things turned out, his coach, the legendary Bo Schembechler, wouldn’t allow him to miss practice. At least, that’s what I was told.
I had read that Jim was disappointed by that. Knowing the president always enjoyed visiting with young people, especially college athletes, I took it upon myself to reach out to Harbaugh and invite him to come to Washington to meet President Reagan. Jim said he would be honored to do so and asked
if he could bring some members of his family with him, specifically his mother and his grandmother. He explained that his father, a football coach at another college, had recruiting trips planned and could not join them. As someone who was very close to both of my grandmothers, I was impressed that Jim wanted to include his, and agreed. They were friendly, unpretentious, and wonderful people.
However, when I took them into the Oval Office to meet President Reagan, there was an awkward moment. The president and Jim had a very animated conversation about football, and Jim’s mother was as pleasant as could be. His grandmother, who was delightful, wanted to do more than just pose for a photo. She told the president, in the most sincere and heartfelt way, that while she “never cared for you much as an actor, I think you are a great president.”
I don’t think anyone had ever said such a thing to him before, and I had a feeling it shocked him. But Reagan was gracious in his response. He gave the Harbaugh family presidential gifts and posed for photos, after which I escorted them out of the Oval Office. I later heard from his aide, Jim Kuhn, that the president was distressed to learn someone did not like him as an actor and wondered which movies of his she had seen. (I said I would find out but never did.)
President Reagan was never much of a complainer. But one day, after his presidency had ended, we were in his office in Los Angeles talking about Hollywood, and he said, “You would think that after what I’ve done—being the only one from that profession to do so—they would commemorate it in some way. But I guess their political agenda has taken over good manners.” Reagan was a little bothered that Hollywood never officially acknowledged that one of their own had ascended to the presidency. He thought an honorary Oscar might have been in order—and felt that had he been a Democrat, he would have received one. Several of us on the former president’s staff felt badly that we had not sought that for him once he was back in Los Angeles. We should have done so soon after we got there.
Movie Nights with the Reagans Page 11
