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

as part of his turf. On December 5 Ronnie noted in his diary: “N.S.C. Briefing—probably Bud’s last. Subject was our undercover effort to free our 5 hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon. It is a complex undertaking with only a few of us in on it. I won’t even write in the diary what we’re up to.” McFarlane was replaced by his deputy, John M. Poindexter, a retired admiral. It was a poor choice. Poindexter was a career military man with little political experience. A recluse by nature, he was not inclined to question or challenge the wishes of the commander in chief, at least as he understood them, or assertive enough to mediate the constant disputes between the Pentagon and State.

Meanwhile, the “complex undertaking” continued after McFarlane’s departure, run largely by North with guidance from CIA director William J. Casey. The secret arms sales to Iran faced growing internal opposition from other members of Ronnie’s fractious national security team. Secretary of State Shultz and Defense Secretary Weinberger—who disagreed on many other issues—were united in their view that it could have disastrous consequences and should be abandoned. Regan also argued against it. But the president was enthralled at the prospect of bringing home the hostages, a goal that North and Casey kept telling him was within reach if they forged ahead. McFarlane continued to act as an emissary in the mission he had launched, but he, too, had growing misgivings about it. The channels of communication within the operation became irregular, opaque, and dysfunctional. Shady operators outside the government were brought in to handle sensitive parts of it.

Once the whole big mess was exposed, it seemed no one—and least among them, the president—had a clear command of the facts. Nancy grew terrified for her husband’s political survival and worried that those around him were too busy looking out for their own hides to be trusted to take care of his interests. All day long, she kept CNN on the television in the family quarters, which put her in a constant state of panic. She found it hard to eat and dropped another ten pounds off her already spare frame. The press was drawing comparisons to Watergate. A poll by the New York Times in early December showed Ronnie’s job approval number had dropped more than 20 percentage points in just a month. Starting in January, both houses of Congress would be run by the Democrats. The incoming Senate majority leader, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, was calling for a select committee to look into the scandal, which would mean nationally televised hearings. Impeachment was beginning to look like a real possibility—a cinch, if it turned out that the president knew about the illegal diversion of funds to the contras.

Ronnie only grew more stubborn. He refused to admit that the arms sales had been a mistake. Nor did he agree with Nancy that all of this called for a major overhaul of his White House staff, starting at the top. Her hectoring only made the president more determined to stand by his chief of staff, even as calls for Regan’s head were growing on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Nancy’s I-told-you-so’s were wearing on her husband. “I was right about Stockman. I was right about Bill Clark,” she argued. “Why won’t you listen to me about Don Regan?”

The Reagans started quarreling constantly. Peter Wallison, who was White House counsel at the time, heard one spat when he made a visit to the family quarters with some work for the president. The chief of staff had done nothing wrong, Ronnie insisted to his wife, so there was no reason to fire him. But Nancy wouldn’t let up. Finally, Ronnie told her: “Get off my back!”

That phrase—and some saltier versions of it—apparently became Ronnie’s regular refrain. One weekend at Camp David, Jim Kuhn was working where he often did, at a desk in the kitchen pantry. The Reagans were going at it in the living room. Kuhn heard Ronnie scream: “Get off my goddamn back!” It was louder than Kuhn had ever heard any human voice, and thoroughly out of character for good-natured Ronnie. Though the executive assistant had witnessed plenty of arguments between the first couple, there had never been anything like this. “I grabbed my papers and folder,” Kuhn said. “I got out of there.”

A report that Ronnie had told his wife to get off his goddamn back also made it into the Washington Post. The White House considered demanding a retraction. It backed off when word got around that Ronnie’s daughter Maureen—who had joined Nancy in her campaign to get rid of the chief of staff—was the likely source of the story. She did not get along with Regan any better than Nancy did. At one point, he told Maureen that she was “a pain in the ass.”

Though Ronnie and Nancy’s differences over Regan were putting a strain on their marriage, he wanted her near during his time of crisis, as much as he ever had. He still hated to spend a night without her. Two weeks after the scandal broke, the president wrote in his diary: “Nancy came home from New York about 5 p.m., so there’s a different feel at the W.H.—It’s been a barn for about 36 hours.” Meanwhile, as Nancy realized that her own efforts to budge her husband were getting nowhere, she looked around for reinforcements. She marshaled the Reagans’ California friends to press for Regan’s ouster. She brought in Mike Deaver, though he by then was under federal investigation for allegedly violating conflict-of-interest laws as a lobbyist. She also turned to her old reliable troubleshooter Stu Spencer. Both Deaver and Spencer agreed with her that Regan had to go, but they knew as well as Nancy how intractable the president could be in a situation like this.

“I’ll be goddamned if I’ll throw somebody else out to save my own ass,” Ronnie told Deaver during one meeting.

“It’s not your ass I’m talking about,” Deaver told