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

At the 1968 Republican convention in Miami Beach, Nancy beams during a demonstration after her husband’s name was put into nomination for president, August 7, 1968. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Nancy Reagan catches a nap on Ronnie’s lap during his grueling—and unsuccessful—campaign for the GOP nomination against President Gerald Ford, August 11, 1976. She would later call her husband’s loss “a glorious defeat” that stood out more than Ronnie’s victories in her memory. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Ronald Reagan with his family, including Michael and wife Colleen with their son, Cameron, Nancy, Patti, and Ron at the Republican National Convention, July 1, 1980. (Diana Walker)

The new president and first lady at Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration. Nancy holds a worn Bible that belonged to Ronnie’s mother, Nelle. January 20, 1981. (Diana Walker)

Official family portrait in the Red Room, January 20, 1981. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)

Entertainer Frank Sinatra with First Lady Nancy Reagan at a National Italian American Foundation Dinner honoring Sinatra, October 1985. (Diana Walker)

First Lady Nancy Reagan at a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, where the president gave Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” an award for allowing his song “Beat It” to be used in a public service campaign against drunk driving, May 14, 1984. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan congratulates her son, Ron, after his performance with the Joffrey Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, March 16, 1981. (Diana Walker)

A tense introduction: Soviet first lady Raisa Gorbachev and Nancy have tea in Geneva during their husbands’ first summit, November 19, 1985. (Diana Walker)

Four days after an arms-for-hostages scandal has begun to unravel, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, flank released hostage David Jacobsen at a welcoming ceremony at the White House, November 7, 1986. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan, with a couple of young visitors, waving from the crown of the Statue of Liberty after it was reopened, July 5, 1986. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan at a “Just Say No” rally at the White House, May 22, 1986. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan places flowers on graves of American soldiers killed in the invasion of Normandy. The commemoration took place at the U.S. cemetery at Omaha Beach, France, on the anniversary of D-day, June 6, 1982. (Diana Walker)

The Reagans aboard the battleship USS Iowa during Independence Day celebrations, New York City, July 4, 1986. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan waves to photographer Diana Walker after the inauguration of George H. W. Bush, January 20, 1989. (Diana Walker)

President Bill Clinton (left) and First Lady Hillary Clinton (second from left) are joined by four former presidents and their wives during Richard Nixon’s funeral in Yorba Linda, California, April 27, 1994. (Left to right) George H. W. and Barbara Bush, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Jerry and Betty Ford. (Diana Walker)

Nancy Reagan kisses her husband’s casket during the interment ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, June 11, 2004. (Kevork Djansezian/Pool/Getty Images)

Guardian of the legacy: Nancy Reagan at the unveiling of a commemorative postage stamp honoring her late husband, November 9, 2004. (David McNew/Getty Images)

On what would be her last visit to the White House, Nancy Reagan joins President Barack Obama for the June 2, 2009, signing of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act. The law set up a panel to plan and carry out activities to mark the hundredth anniversary of Ronnie’s birth in 2011. (Lawrence Jackson/The White House)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As I have plugged away on this book for the past four and a half years, people have often asked how I came up with the idea of writing a biography of Nancy Reagan.

The answer is simple: I didn’t.

This project was conceived by Simon & Schuster editorial director Priscilla Painton, who is a dear friend going back decades. In the months after Nancy Reagan died in 2016, Priscilla had seized upon this idea and was trying to figure out who might be the person to write it. She mentioned it to Gail Ross, the wonderful agent with whom I had discussed, although not all that seriously, the idea that I might want to do a book some day. Gail said, “What about your friend Karen Tumulty?”

So this is how it happened. Both Priscilla and Gail have been extraordinary in steering me throughout, calming my anxieties about what I had taken on, sharpening my writing and my thinking, and trying to turn me into an author. Philip Bashe did so much more than the title of copy editor would imply. I also had the blessing of a terrific team at Simon & Schuster, including Hana Park, Lisa Healy, Elizabeth Herman, and Angela Ching. The great Jonathan Karp, now its CEO, came up with the title, which captured so much.

From the outset, I benefitted from the support of Washington Post publisher (and Reagan Foundation chairman) Fred Ryan. A former White House aide and then chief of staff to the ex-president, Fred respected and encouraged this as an endeavor of independent journalism. He and his assistant, Stefanie Prelesnik, were unfailingly generous in sharing contact information of hard-to-find sources, as well as a place to check when details of events were sketchy or contradictory. At no point did Fred attempt to shade or influence the conclusions I reached. If I have missed the mark anywhere, the fault is purely my own.

Nor would this book have come to be without the support of my bosses at the Washington Post—both on the news side, which is where I was when I started, and later in my new family-within-a-family in the Post Opinions section. Among those in the paper’s leadership who made this possible were Steven Ginsberg, Tracy Grant, Marty Baron, Fred Hiatt, Ruth Marcus, and Michael Larabee. Then there are the many colleagues who make