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

do so as well. As 1981 came to a close, plans to rehabilitate her image were being put into place. Nancy’s chief of staff, Peter McCoy, who had come from the Beverly Hills art world, was moved over to the Commerce Department. In his place was installed canny thirty-two-year-old James Rosebush, who’d been special assistant to the president for private sector initiatives. He had been picked for the job after writing a memo to Deaver outlining a strategy for fixing Nancy’s public relations problems. Among his recommendations: she had to get out of the White House more, show more compassion for families and children.

Over the years to come, Nancy’s approval rating would go up and down. The portrait of a shallow socialite that was drawn by her critics early in her husband’s presidency would be replaced by one of a calculating power behind the throne, imposing her will on matters of state both foreign and domestic. The truth was, America never quite figured out what to make of her.

“Everything I did or said seemed to generate controversy, and it often seemed you couldn’t open a newspaper without seeing a story about me,” she reflected later. “I don’t think I was as bad, or as extreme in my power or my weakness, as I was depicted—especially during the first year, when people thought I was overly concerned with trivialities, and the final year, when some of the same people were convinced I was running the show.

“In many ways, I think I served as a lightning rod; and in any case, I came to realize that while Ronald Reagan was an extremely popular president, some people didn’t seem to like his wife very much. Something about me, or the image people had of me, just seemed to rub them the wrong way.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nancy would always think of 1981 as “a lost year.”

She was not referring to her own blunders, though there had been plenty. What defined that first year in Washington for her—what made everything else seem inconsequential—happened in a split second on the afternoon of March 30. A deranged young man with a $47.95 handgun and a fixation on a Hollywood actress nearly robbed her of Ronnie. For the rest of his presidency, an assassination attempt that almost succeeded would leave Nancy even more anxious and protective of her husband, more wary of everything and everyone around him, and grasping for ways to control the dangerous, unseen forces that might be lurking around any corner. “Nothing can ever happen to my Ronnie,” she wrote in her diary during the sleepless night she spent after the shooting. “My life would be over.”

To the degree it could be said about any day at the White House, that Monday had started out as a routine one. Nancy spent the morning with Barbara Bush at a reception for the Washington Performing Arts Society at the Phillips Collection art museum, followed by a luncheon in honor of the two of them and Cabinet wives at the Georgetown home of Michael Ainslie, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. During the lunch, Nancy had felt an urge that she would later call a premonition; something telling her she should get back home. She excused herself a little early.

Shortly after she returned, Nancy met with interior decorator Ted Graber and chief usher Rex Scouten in one of her favorite retreats: the cheery third-floor solarium, where floor-to-ceiling windows offer a spectacular view of the Washington Monument and National Mall. The solarium was under renovation, and it was drizzling outside, but the cheery daffodils in the window boxes spoke to a warmer, brighter season ahead.

Their conversation was interrupted by the unexpected appearance of George Opfer, the head of Nancy’s Secret Service detail. Opfer was a blond, thirty-two-year-old New Yorker, so good-looking that he sometimes got fan mail from women who spotted him standing next to Nancy in photographs. Though Opfer had been assigned to Nancy for only a matter of months, he had already developed a bond of trust with her; an understanding that the two of them would always be honest with each other. Protecting a first lady—particularly one as demanding as Nancy—was an assignment many agents would have greeted with little enthusiasm. But Secret Service assistant director (and later director) John Simpson, who had known the Reagans since the 1968 campaign, advised Opfer: “Don’t listen to the stories, because they are wrong. Make your own evaluation when you get out there. And one more thing: the Reagans really are a modern-day love story. So be prepared for that.” Nancy introduced the incoming head of her detail to Ronnie for the first time at the Reagans’ home in Pacific Palisades, shortly after the election. The president elect looked him in the eye, and said: “Well, George, make sure you take good care of her.” From the edge in Ronnie’s voice, Opfer knew Ronnie was not merely making casual conversation.

Opfer had been in the Presidential Protective Division command post in room W-16, just below the Oval Office, when he heard the traffic that came over the radio at 2:27 p.m. First was the voice of Raymond Shaddick, assistant special agent in charge of the president’s detail: “Advise, we’ve had shots fired. Shots fired. There are some injuries, uh, lay one on.” Sixteen seconds later, Special Agent in Charge Jerry Parr invoked the president’s code name and assured the agents back at the White House that Ronnie had not been hit: “Rawhide is okay. Follow-up. Rawhide is okay.”

Opfer knew immediately he had to find Nancy, to make sure she didn’t get the news from anyone else. There wasn’t time to wait for an elevator. He sprinted from the West Wing and up three flights of stairs to the top floor of the residence. When she saw him there, Nancy knew immediately something was wrong. He motioned for the first lady to join him at the end of a ramp connecting the sunroom