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

him. “You stood up on the steps of the Capitol and took an oath to defend the Constitution and this office. You’ve got to think of the country first.”

At that, Ronnie threw his pen onto the carpet with such force that it bounced. “I’ve always thought of the country,” he retorted.

There was another public relations problem developing. Nancy’s internal campaign against the chief of staff was becoming the talk of Washington. It was evident that she was the unseen force behind many of the negative stories about Regan that were making their way into the press. The image of his wife trying to take charge only added to a growing perception that Ronnie himself was not on top of things. When Nancy appeared in front of the White House to greet the arrival of that year’s official Christmas tree on a horse-drawn wagon, reporters took advantage of the ceremonial photo op to ask her whether the president should fire Regan. “I think that’s up to my husband. It has nothing to do with me whatever,” the first lady fibbed. “I’ve made no recommendations at all.”

The very next evening, on December 4, two visitors came to the official residence at her invitation to meet with the president. One of them was William Rogers, a fixture of the Republican establishment who had been secretary of state under Nixon as well as Eisenhower’s attorney general. The other was Democratic Party chairman Robert Strauss, a gregarious Texan known as one of Washington’s most savvy and well-connected insiders. Nancy wanted Ronnie to hear advice from respected figures outside the White House; men who had seen presidents face trials in the past and who could give him a sense of how this thing might play out.

So that no one would spot their arrival, Deaver led the two men through an underground tunnel that connects the Treasury Department basement to the subbasement of the White House’s East Wing. Its existence is little known even by longtime Washingtonians. The passage had been built right after the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor as an escape route and bunker for the president and his key staff; a tomblike refuge of last resort. As Deaver, Rogers, and Strauss made their way through its zigzagging route, they passed bunk beds and a hospital. When the three men reached the living quarters, Nancy greeted them and led them to the sitting room. Over the next two hours, she asked most of the questions, while Ronnie sat back and listened.

Rogers, a friend and golf partner of Regan’s, was no help to her cause. He said little and predicted all of this would blow over. Strauss, however, had a lot he wanted to tell Ronnie.

“Mr. President,” he began, “let me tell you about the first time I was up here in the residence. LBJ was in office, and a few of us came to see him about Vietnam. When my turn came to speak, I held back. I didn’t tell the president what I really thought. Instead, I told him what I thought he wanted to hear.

“When I went home that night, I felt like a two-dollar whore. And I said to myself, if any president is ever foolish enough to invite me back, I hope I show more character.”

Strauss said he had no quarrel with Regan, “but you’ve got two serious problems right now, and he’s not helping you with either one. First, you’ve got a political problem on the Hill, and Don Regan has no constituency and no allies there. Second, you’ve got a serious media problem, and Regan has no friends there, either. It makes no difference how earnest he is, or how much you like him, or how well the two of you get along. He’s not the man you need. You’re in a hell of a mess, Mr. President, and you need a chief of staff who can help get you out of it.” Strauss also told the president that his news conference had been a mistake, and advised him not to hold any more until he got his facts straight.

Nancy had never heard anyone outside of Ronnie’s closest advisers speak to her husband so bluntly and forcefully. Later that night, she called Strauss and thanked him for confronting the president with hard truths that no one else had been willing to deliver. “He has to have his mind opened and his eyes open on this and see what’s happening to him,” she said. But Ronnie was unmoved. With his typical optimism, he kept assuring Nancy that everything would all work out. So, failing to convince her husband to act, Nancy decided to pressure the chief of staff directly. In her phone calls to Regan, she was not subtle. He often picked up the line to hear a sarcastic greeting: “Are you still here, Don?”

Nancy also looked for help from Vice President Bush, who agreed with her that Regan should go and had told the president so repeatedly. She pressed him at a White House Christmas party to just go around Ronnie and issue the order for Regan to leave himself.

“Nancy, I’ve got some hang-ups on that, based on my relationship with the president,” Bush told her.

“Well, I do it all the time,” Nancy replied, “and it is important that you do it.”

Bush’s reluctance only reinforced Nancy’s view—harsh, and probably unfair—that the vice president was too weak to be an effective partner for her husband. She also believed he was more concerned about protecting his own political future than Ronnie’s survival.

Then came another crisis. On December 15, the day before CIA director Casey was to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, he suffered two seizures and collapsed in his office. Surgery three days later revealed a brain tumor. Casey was partially paralyzed, could not speak, and would be dead within five months. The CIA director was believed, then and now, to have been central to setting up the Iran arms sales and to engineering the diversion of the proceeds