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

“Can you have a conversation that makes sense to you with the president?” Lamb asked.

“Not now,” Nancy answered. Her voice dropped to a whisper: “No.”

Lamb pressed her: “How have you dealt with it when people come to visit and he doesn’t recognize them?”

“Well, now we don’t have visitors,” Nancy replied. “We never let that happen.”

In January 2001, less than a month before his ninetieth birthday, Ronnie slipped at home and broke his right hip. As he recuperated from surgery at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, he was beyond knowing that his daughter Maureen was in the same hospital. For weeks, sixty-year-old Mermie had been at the hospital’s John Wayne Cancer Institute, undergoing aggressive chemotherapy against a deadly and spreading melanoma. Nancy, Maureen’s siblings, and her husband, Dennis Revell, shuttled back and forth between the two rooms. On January 20 Ronnie and Nancy watched television together in his hospital room as George W. Bush was inaugurated the nation’s forty-third president. Ronnie was discharged later that day.

Maureen would not be released from the hospital until March. Despite the treatment, cancer continued its rampage through her bones and into her brain. Ronnie’s fierce, passionate, big-hearted daughter suffered a seizure over the Fourth of July holiday and died on August 8. Her maple casket, decked with a spray of pink roses and white mums, was carried into Sacramento’s 112-year-old Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament by Secret Service agents who were veterans of the Reagan detail. Her mother, Jane, and her stepmother, Nancy, sat together in a pew. The two octogenarians—tiny and elegantly dressed—looked so alike they could have been sisters. Jane, balancing on a cane, laid a cross on the coffin; Nancy placed the book of Gospels on it. Michael, Ron, and Patti offered prayers for their sister. All of which made Ronnie’s absence feel even more painful.

The disease that was robbing her of Ronnie inspired Nancy, ever the doctor’s daughter, to take up a new and controversial cause: embryonic stem-cell research. Not because it would help him—it was too late for that—but in hopes that other families might one day be spared the ordeal of Alzheimer’s. Film producer Doug Wick, her longtime family friend, sparked Nancy’s interest in the possibility that the burgeoning field of stem-cell research might hold a cure, not only for Alzheimer’s but also for other diseases. Wick’s own daughter Tessa had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was eight years old.

Wick began inviting her over to lunches at his house with scientists who were working in the field. Nancy was particularly taken with Hans Keirstead, a movie-star-handsome entrepreneur and leader in stem-cell research. Nancy grilled him for more than two hours, Wick recalled. “The depth of her questions, the understanding and the reading she was doing was so substantial by any measure.” Wick also couldn’t help but notice Nancy was flirting: “She loved men, and she was really cute and charming.”

Quietly, Nancy began opening doors for Wick in Washington. She helped arrange for him to meet with key figures such as Arizona senator John McCain and Utah’s Orrin Hatch, a leader on health issues. She kept asking: “Who else should I call?” But this was a tricky endeavor for a high-profile Republican, given that the most promising stem-cell treatments involved the destruction of human embryos. So, at first, Nancy did her advocacy strictly behind the scenes. As George W. Bush deliberated over banning all federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, she wrote him a letter. Dated April 11, 2001, it read:

Dear Mr. President,

As you know, Ronnie recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday. In earlier times, we would have been able to share our mutual pride in a life filled with wonderful memories. Now, while I can draw strength from these memories, I do it alone as Ronnie struggles in a world unknown to me or the scientists who devote their lives to Alzheimer’s research. Because of this, I am determined to do what I can to save others from this pain and anguish. I’m writing, therefore, to ask your help in supporting what appears to be the most promising path to a cure—stem cell research.

I also know that this is not the first you have heard of this issue. And I know there are others who feel just as strongly in opposition to this. But I ask your help to ensure that this embryonic stem cell

research, under appropriate guidelines, be protected as scientists pursue medical miracle possibilities.

Ronnie was very brave in writing to the public about his condition. It was his way of sharing with the thousands of families who are already afflicted. He always believed in man’s ability to make this a better world and I know he would be gratified to know that his own suffering might spare others the same wrenching family journey.

Mr. President, I have some personal experience regarding the many decisions you face each day. I do not want to add to that burden, but I’d be very grateful if you would take my thoughts and prayers into your consideration on this critical issue.

Most sincerely,

Nancy Reagan

Bush did not respond for three weeks, Wick said, which wounded Nancy. But the letter, which had also been sent to congressional leadership, was soon circulating on Capitol Hill and among the press. Her appeal did not bring the outcome she desired. Bush put tight restrictions on stem-cell research. Nonetheless, she continued to work the phones, while maintaining a public silence.

Nancy operated stealthily in part because she liked the younger Bush, with whom she shared a July 6 birthday, and he was fond of her as well. When he was still the governor of Texas, George W. Bush chose the Reagan Library as the place to deliver his first major foreign-policy speech as a presidential candidate. He began by paying tribute to Ronnie: “We live in the nation President Reagan restored, and the world he helped to save. A world