The Triumph of Nancy Reagan Karen Tumulty (motivational novels .TXT) 📖

the plane, even the Secret Service agents joined in the consensus that it would be a landslide of historic proportion. Ronnie demurred, saying as he always did that he would be happy with 51 percent of the vote. Nor was Nancy joining in any premature celebration. “Well, you better be right,” she told Rollins. “You’ve been so overconfident in this race, Ed, you better be right.”

Rollins was indeed right. Ronnie won everywhere but Mondale’s home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Nancy would have no memory of much that happened the final two days before the election. She took a fall that Sunday night as she got out of bed at the Red Lion Inn in Sacramento to look for a blanket, which put a goose egg on her head. Though she was able to put in a full day of campaigning, news accounts noted that she looked drawn and tired.

One last time, Ronnie and Nancy did their election night ritual of dinner at the Jorgensens’, followed by a victory celebration at the Century Plaza. In his diary entry the next day, Ronnie wrote: “Well, 49 states, 59% of the vote & 525 electoral votes. A short press conf. The press is now trying to prove it wasn’t a landslide or should I say a mandate?”

But in what it took to achieve that victory, there were seeds of trouble ahead. A campaign that had been largely issue free had not provided a blueprint for governing in a second term, which is historically a rocky and treacherous time for presidents. Everyone was exhausted—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The bitterness and finger-pointing surrounding the debate in Louisville was a wound that would not heal.

Baker wanted out of the White House and would soon arrange a job swap with Treasury secretary Don Regan. He took Richard Darman, his tough and savvy aide, over to Treasury with him. Deaver also had his eye on the exit and a life in the private sector that would provide enough money to afford the expensive tastes he had developed in his years of traveling in the Reagans’ circle. Spencer returned to California, where he could continue to advise when he was inclined to do so and maintain his distance from the palace intrigue when he wasn’t. As Lou Cannon wrote: “Although Nancy Reagan did not realize it sufficiently and Ronald Reagan realized it not at all, the landslide of 1984 had left the people who had done the most to help the president during his first four years burned out and disillusioned. Most of them couldn’t wait to leave the White House, where it was no longer Morning Again in America.”

As the first lady’s most trusted allies were replaced by people she barely knew, her early-warning system in the West Wing was shut down. That meant she had no clue that a rogue operation was developing within the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, one that would lead to the Iran-contra scandal and come close to taking down Ronnie’s presidency. Only when it was almost too late would Nancy recognize what had happened. “If, by some miracle, I could take back one decision in Ronnie’s presidency, it would be his agreement in January 1985 that Jim Baker and Donald Regan should swap jobs,” she recalled. “It seemed like a good idea at the time—a little unusual, perhaps, but reasonable. Jim, who had served Ronnie well as chief of staff, was worn out, and Donald Regan was more than willing to come to the White House after four years as secretary of the Treasury. When Baker and Regan suggested the switch, there was no reason to expect that this new arrangement would lead to a political disaster.”

The inauguration was perhaps a harbinger. In 1981 Ronnie had lucked out with some of the most pleasant midwinter weather on record. His second term began during an arctic blast that sent temperatures in the nation’s capital plummeting to four degrees below zero. Because January 20 fell on a Sunday that year, Ronnie took the oath privately. The ceremonial swearing-in scheduled for the following day had to be moved inside. Where 140,000 guests had been invited to the main event, only 1,200 could squeeze into the Capitol Rotunda to hear Ronnie declare that “our nation is poised for greatness.” On the grounds outside, an icy wind whipped around 26,000 empty chairs and a vacant platform. The people who would have been in those seats had to settle for watching the proceedings on television in their hotel rooms or in crowded restaurants, seeing just what they would have seen if they’d stayed home.

All the other outdoor festivities were canceled as well. No one wanted to subject the 10,578 people slated to march in the inaugural parade to frostbite or worse. The few onlookers hearty enough to stand along the Pennsylvania Avenue route got only a glimpse of the presidential motorcade whizzing by. Nancy learned later that while she and Ronnie had been at church on the day of the private swearing-in, an intruder had sneaked into the White House with the Marine Band: “All I could think was: What if he had been carrying a gun? I prayed that this wasn’t a bad omen.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The unusual White House power-sharing arrangement of the first four years, in which the operation was managed by the troika of Baker, Deaver, and Meese, had been ungainly from the start. It created internal fiefdoms, suspicion, and backbiting: the ideologues aligned against the pragmatists; the Californians against the Washington veterans. No one was ever sure whose hand was on the helm when it came to making any given decision. After Ronnie’s 1984 victory, it was clearer than ever that the deal that had been struck four years earlier had reached its expiration date. All three members of the troika wanted out.

In February 1985 Meese finally moved over to the Justice Department as attorney general. His confirmation had been delayed