The Triumph of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty (short books for teens txt) 📕

lowest. It was a spectacular—and uncharacteristic—lapse of judgment. Her behavior also revived memories of all the slights that Nancy had dealt the Bushes during the eight years of the Reagan presidency.

But it is also possible—indeed, likely—that stress and anxiety about her husband were a factor in Nancy’s peculiar behavior. Only a week before the inauguration, as unmarked moving vans were loading up in front of the White House, Bush had honored Ronnie by presenting him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. As one of his final acts in office, Bush gave an emotional tribute to the man he had served so loyally for eight years: “Ronald Reagan didn’t just make the world believe in America. He made Americans believe in themselves.… Some men reflect their times. Ronald Reagan changed his time.”

Ronnie’s voice sounded a little weak as he accepted the honor. His step was a little slower. His suit hung loosely on a thinner frame. Richard Allen was there and noticed the former president standing alone with his medal after the ceremony, so he went over to talk to him. Allen reminded Ronnie of a funny story about a trip they had taken together to Germany in the 1970s. It was a tale they had laughed about many times over the years. This time it didn’t seem to register with Ronnie. Allen recalled later: “I knew he was always bad on names. Now, I thought, he’s bad on memory. But it didn’t cross my mind…”

The following month, at a February 1993 birthday celebration for Ronnie at the Reagan Library, there came a more obvious and public lapse. It was another event where Margaret Thatcher was on hand. Reading from his index cards, Ronnie gave the same toast to her twice, word for word. The five-hundred-plus guests at the fund-raising gala were unsettled and awkwardly gave him two standing ovations. One factor may have been that Ronnie, uncharacteristically, had three glasses of wine before he delivered his tribute to Thatcher, the woman he called his political “soul mate.”

This was a full year before the subsequent year’s birthday event in Washington, where Hutton and the others became alarmed at the former president’s disorientation. By that point in 1994, most everyone agreed, Ronnie’s condition was becoming increasingly evident and harder to explain away. At Richard Nixon’s funeral in April, White House photographers who hadn’t seen Ronnie in a while were shocked at his appearance. Nancy, a picture of worry, guided her husband by the arm to his seat. Not only had Ronnie’s hair gone gray, but he had a vacant look on his face. He listened to the eulogies with his mouth slightly agape. George Bush was concerned and told people he recognized what he feared was dementia. Bill and Hillary Clinton noticed how Nancy had to keep gently coaching her husband: “Ronnie, you remember so-and-so…”

His longtime political adviser Stu Spencer also saw odd things in the months before Ronnie made the announcement he had Alzheimer’s. That summer, the two of them were playing golf at the Los Angeles Country Club, something they often did. Spencer was driving the cart, with Ronnie sitting on the seat beside him: “We’re out there a few holes, and I kind of looked over at him, and he was staring at me. He had that look on his face. Blank look. Like: ‘Who’s this guy?’ Me! I mean, I sensed it. I read it. I’m pretty good at reading body language. I thought, ‘Uh-oh.’ ” But two holes later, Ronnie was bantering with Spencer as he always had. At another point, Spencer visited the ex-president in his Century City office. The same thing happened. For a moment, Ronnie didn’t seem to know who Spencer was. Then he was fine.

When it happened the second time, Spencer called Nancy. She told him she had scheduled a visit to the Mayo Clinic. “The local doctors think he has Alzheimer’s, and we’re going to have it checked,” Nancy said. After Ronnie’s 1989 surgery, doctors at Mayo began adding tests of mental acuity to Ronnie’s annual physical. He would be asked to read a paragraph and answer questions about it, and to do mathematical calculations. He passed the test with flying colors in 1992. But in 1993 the physicians began to see a deterioration. Ronnie noticed it too. “You know, I had to read the question, read the paragraph, read the question, and then go back and search for the answer. I don’t think I finished the whole exam,” he said.

When Ronnie had his two-day physical the following year, it was worse. There was still a possibility that this was a hormonal problem, or maybe a brain tumor, so the Mayo team sent a physician to Los Angeles to observe him. The official diagnosis came in August. “My mother made the difficult, but, in retrospect, I believe, wise and kind decision to put off telling him until it could no longer be avoided,” Ron wrote later. “Knowing her husband as she did, she correctly intuited that such a diagnosis—a terminal illness with no hope of cure—once acknowledged might send him spiraling into a deep depression, jeopardizing any chance he had for a few relatively good years before darkness descended.”

But finally, there could be no denying it any longer. The truth was becoming apparent, and Nancy got wind that media outlets were preparing stories about his decline. On the first Saturday of November, Ronnie, Nancy, and Fred Ryan met in the library of the Reagan home in Bel Air with one of the former president’s doctors. They discussed what lay ahead. Ronnie decided on the spot that he had to make a public announcement. He recalled the letters he had received after his operation for colon cancer from strangers who said they had decided to get checkups that had saved their lives. Ronnie also remembered how many women had gone for mammograms after Nancy’s mastectomy. Maybe by sharing this, they could help others who were heading down this long, ineluctable