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

to the contras. He worked closely with the gung-ho Oliver North, whose office was down the hall from his, in a part of the Old Executive Office Building known as “spook alley.” So devoted was Casey to the operation that he tried to keep it going even after it had been revealed and Poindexter and North had been fired. In retrospect, Nancy believed his illness had affected his judgment, but his incapacitation was catastrophic. He was one of the few people who could have provided details of what Ronnie knew about the scheme and when he knew it.

Back in 1980, Casey had been the man to whom Nancy had turned when she needed someone to put her husband’s teetering presidential campaign back on track. But as the severity of Casey’s condition became clear in the weeks after he was rushed to the hospital, Nancy made no room for sentimentality—or compassion. Right before Christmas, she called Regan and demanded to know what he was doing to get rid of Casey and find a replacement to lead the CIA. Regan pleaded for time and sympathy, saying that Casey and his wife did not yet realize how serious his prognosis was. Regan claimed Nancy snapped back: “You’re more interested in protecting Bill Casey than in protecting Ronnie! He’s dragging Ronnie down! Nobody believes what Casey says, his credibility is gone on the Hill.” Casey did not resign until late January.

Nancy also wanted the head of Patrick J. Buchanan, the White House’s fiery communications director. The arch-conservative Buchanan was making wild statements that were all over television. He told three thousand cheering Cuban American and Nicaraguan supporters in Miami that it was fine to violate the law for the right cause. “If Colonel North broke any rules, he will stand up and take it like the fighting marine he is,” Buchanan declared. “But I say, if Colonel North ripped off the ayatollah and took thirty million dollars and gave it to the contras, then God bless Colonel North.”

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Buchanan lashed out at the media and denounced the Republicans on Capitol Hill for not reflexively rallying to Ronnie’s defense: “Is this how they repay the leader who has done more for the Republican Party than any American since Theodore Roosevelt, who brought us back from Watergate?” White House officials claimed that Buchanan, the man who was supposed to be in charge of their message operation, was “soloing.” Press spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters: “The president does not agree or condone the breaking of the law by any individual, and he does not in any way believe that the president, whoever he might be, is above the law and has the right to pick and choose what laws may or may not be broken.”

When Nancy called Regan to demand he fire Buchanan, the chief of staff assured her that this was only a temporary problem. Buchanan, who was thinking of running for president, had agreed to leave by February (though he would not depart until a month after that). Nancy moved to limit the damage he could do in the meantime. She insisted that Buchanan and his communications shop not be allowed to draft Ronnie’s State of the Union address, which was scheduled for the end of January. “His ideas are not Ronald Reagan’s ideas,” Nancy told Regan.

Upon her insistence, the job went to Ken Khachigian, the speechwriter she and Deaver had recruited to write Ronnie’s address at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Khachigian was both talented and tolerant of Nancy’s demands. “You just couldn’t put Ken with the Reagans enough. He just was such a smart guy, such a wordsmith. He loved the Reagans,” Jim Kuhn recalled. Over the next month, Nancy became heavily involved in shaping the speech. The weekend before Ronnie was to deliver it, she summoned Khachigian to Camp David to go over the draft. Nancy insisted that the part about Iran be cut back because it was “too long, and it’s not appropriate. Ronald Reagan’s got to be shown to be in charge.”

Though Nancy continued to push for Buchanan’s ouster, the communications director did have some sound tactical instincts. Early on in the scandal, Buchanan had figured out that the White House was too dysfunctional to both deal effectively with a nebulous situation and continue to get the regular business of governing done. He had been a special assistant to Nixon during Watergate and also knew that even the slightest appearance of a cover-up would be fatal. In a December 12 memo to Regan, Buchanan urged the appointment of a temporary “special counselor” to manage the White House’s responses to the multiple investigations that were under way. This person, he suggested, should be someone highly regarded and credible, who should operate independently, with standing equal to the chief of staff and direct access to the president.

The day after Christmas, Ronnie summoned David Abshire, who was serving as his NATO ambassador, to return to Washington and fill the new role, which they also agreed would be given Cabinet rank. Abshire was a West Pointer known for his tact and intellect, and had helped found one of Washington’s most influential think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In his first meeting with Ronnie in the Oval Office shortly after the new year, Abshire was shocked at what had become of the president in the thirteen months since he had last laid eyes on him: “Behind the desk sat a frail, pale, and thin Ronald Reagan, dreadfully different from the vigorous, commanding presence I had last seen at the NATO heads-of-government summit.”

Part of it may have been that seventy-five-year-old Ronnie had undergone surgery for an enlarged prostate just a week before, but Abshire sensed that what he saw was a congenital optimist whose spirit had been crushed. Ronnie looked so bad that Nancy and Regan later ordered that the official photo of his first meeting with the new special counselor not be released to the public. What