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

“At 8:04 a.m.… ‘Your wife is all right’ ”: Ronald Reagan with Hubler, Where’s the Rest of Me?, 275.

Nine-year-old Patti… GE Theater: “General Electric Theater, 1953–62, Nancy Reagan, Ron Patti, Davis, Ron Reagan Jr., Ronald Reagan, ‘Other Wise Man,’ December 24, 1961,” available at Everett Collection/Alamy Stock Photo, https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-general-electric-theater-1953-62-nancy-reagan-patti-davis-ron-reagan-32380600.html; Kellner, “Lights, Electricity, Action.”

Patti rocking her doll… “just as colorful”: “1950s Ronald Reagan Lighting His Home,” YouTube, 3:13, MyFootsage.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMNAhoyde7s.

Nancy, Patti, and Ron… “aim to keep it that way”: “Crest Commercial Featuring Nancy, Patty, and Ron Reagan Jr!,” YouTube, 1:17, spuzzlightyeartoo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqh8uRe_mzI.

“He was easy to love… out of his sight”: Ron Reagan, My Father at 100: A Memoir (New York: Viking Penguin, 2011), 226–27.

“What happened between arrival and departure was yelling… sing to myself to block out the sound”: Patti Davis, The Way I See It, 17–18.

“a weekly, sometimes daily, event”: ibid., 21.

“Because you upset her so much”: ibid., 38.

“unresolved feelings about her father”… center stage in their home: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 136–37.

“only a phase”: ibid., 136–38.

Ron, the more easygoing”… “ ‘every time you leave’ ”: Ron Reagan, author interview, Seattle, July 23, 2017.

“Now that I’m older… no training for”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 127.

“When I told my parents… leave the wall intact”: Maureen Reagan, First Father, First Daughter, 132.

“Dad was quite embarrassed… ‘haven’t gotten that far yet’ ”: ibid., 97.

“I was flying blind… troubled and rebellious”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 132.

new bedroom was for Ron’s nurse: Michael Reagan with Hyams, Outside Looking In, 82–83.

“She’s too busy… invited you in?”: ibid., 74–75.

“an illegitimate bastard… had for years”: ibid., 88–90.

“I didn’t recognize you”: ibid., 96.

wept over someone in the family who was not himself: ibid., 93–94.

“Whether Mike helps buy his first car… Your Husband”: Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan, May 24, 1963, love letters file, Reagan Presidential Library.

“a description of the new 1963 coffee pot”: Ronald Reagan with Hubler, Where’s the Rest of Me?, 272–73.

“The country needs your kind of leadership”: Norman L. Stevens Jr. to Ronald Reagan, 1962, Personal Papers, Box 84, R. Reagan Letters, Reagan Presidential Library.

“And there we were.… Ever”: Colacello, Ronnie & Nancy, 334–35.

CHAPTER SIX

“Reagan seldom sought their collective advice… quiet space via Nancy”: Thomas C. Reed, The Reagan Enigma: 1964–1980 (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2014), 193–94.

“Our idea of a big evening… go out to the movies”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 30.

wearing jeans at dinner: Ronald Reagan with Hubler, Where’s the Rest of Me?, 274–75.

“The ladies of the Colleagues… she was one of them”: Leamer, Make-Believe, 190–91.

Zipkin regularly mailed her batches… highlighted in yellow marker: Richard Johnson, Page Six, New York Post, April 2, 1987.

“I’d hire those sons of bitches”: Spencer, Behind the Podium, 34–35.

“This guy could do it… this guy could make it”: ibid.

“Nancy was in every one of the meetings… after Bill and I left”: ibid., 40.

“You can do it.… going to get worse”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 182.

“She’s actually a terrifically intelligent politician… sorting that out”: Spencer, Behind the Podium, 41.

On Spencer’s first flight… that it bled: Spencer, interview by author, Palm Desert, CA, December 17, 2016.

“I must say my emotions are wired… not just my enemies”: William, F. Buckley Jr., The Reagan I Knew (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 12.

“And that’s how we landed”: transcript from unaired interview footage, Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.

“It could have been all over the papers!… tearless eyes”: Patti Davis, The Way I See It, 91–92, 96, 100–105.

rendered invisible for the duration of the campaign. On that, Nancy and Spencer agreed: ibid., 85. Spencer, interview by author, Palm Desert, CA, July 11, 2017.

drafted and shipped off to Vietnam: Michael Reagan with Hyams, Outside Looking In,104–5.

“she was livid … chewed me out for, probably, fifteen minutes”: Curtis Patrick, Reagan: What Was He Really Like?, vol. 1 (Charleston, SC: Booksurge, 2007), 281.

“Humiliated to see herself written out… “as they see fit”: Maureen Reagan, First Father, First Daughter, 146–49.

“The bitch is on the phone again”: Spencer, author interview, October 22, 2016.

“Well, I hope I didn’t destroy your day”: Patrick, Reagan: What Was He Really Like? 1:281.

“a dubious honor… working-class California”: Reed, Reagan Enigma, 29–30.

“Frank Sinatra called me the next day.… out of the water with those folks”: Spencer, Behind the Podium, 46.

“I had always thought… almost an anticlimax”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 112.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Airlines had to add flights… seven thousand people who came for it: Cecilia Rasmussen, “Circumstances Sometimes Restrain Inaugurations’ Pomp,” Los Angeles Times online, January 7, 2007, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-07-me-then7-story.html.

“My Darling First Lady”… “you’ll always have a me”: Nancy Reagan, I Love You, Ronnie, 96–97.

But there was some consolation… meant to buy the governor’s favor on a tax bill that gave a big break to the movie industry: Nicholas M. Horrock, “Reagan Resists Financial Disclosure,” New York Times online, August 13, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/13/archives/reagan-resists-financial-disclosure-position-in-contrast-to-that-of.html.

“Some legislators thought their celebrity governor… spend evenings at home”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, 232.

“transfixed adoration… witness of the Virgin Birth”: Cannon, Ronnie and Jesse, 161.

“Whenever I think of Nancy Reagan now… middle-class American woman’s daydream, circa 1948”: Joan Didion, “Pretty Nancy,” Saturday Evening Post, June 1, 1968, 18.

“Would she have liked it better… before she ever met me”: Nancy Reagan with Novak, My Turn, 28.

“She alienated even those who were disposed to like her… bluntly honest and undiplomatic”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, 236.

“What do we do now?”: Morris, Dutch, 347.

“She was still in a period of learning… she knew there had to be a change”: Stuart Spencer, interview, November 15–16, 2001, Presidential Oral Histories, Ronald Reagan Presidency, Miller Center, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/stuart-spencer-oral-history.

gas chamber where Mitchell was strapped to a chair: Miles Corwin, “Last Man Executed in California: Furor over Mitchell Case Resounds 18 Years Later,” Los Angeles Times online, August 23, 1985, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-23-mn-24365-story.html.

“a very uncomfortable feeling… same principle, it seems to me”: Tracy Wood, United Press International, printed in multiple newspapers in June 1967.

Field found that more than two-thirds of Catholics supported loosening the restrictions on abortion: Lou Cannon, “California’s Abortion Law: A Road Not