Killing Reagan (40 page)
Authors: Bill O'Reilly
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Ronald Reagan's mother,
Nelle Reagan
, died on July 25, 1962. She was seventy-nine years old. Her husband, the hard-drinking Jack Reagan, died in 1941 at age fifty-seven. Both are buried at the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. Ronald Reagan's lone sibling, his older brother Neil, died in 1996 of heart failure. His body was cremated.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Ronald Reagan's beloved
Rancho del Cielo
was sold in 1998. But the property has not been developed or subdivided, nor has the white adobe ranch house been torn down. Rather, the property remains exactly as it was during the time Ronald and Nancy Reagan owned it. A conservative group known as the Young America's Foundation purchased the land from Nancy Reagan, who lowered her asking price significantly to make the sale possible. A museum in Santa Barbara, California, recounts the history of the ranch, while also displaying a number of items of Reagan memorabilia. There are a limited number of tours of the property, allowing visitors to comprehend firsthand exactly why Ronald Reagan knew such contentment at this mountaintop retreat.
To this day, there are those who contend that the ghost of Ronald Reagan is present on the property.
Â
In researching and writing this book, Martin Dugard and I were extremely careful to use only material we could confirm through at least two sources, and even then we tried to be very fair in presenting facts that might put certain individuals in a bad light.
In the last year of his presidency, Ronald Reagan was aware that some close to him were questioning the way he was running his administration. Critical books by daughter Patti, Donald Regan, former spokesman Larry Speakes, and others apparently wounded Reagan, who valued loyalty. The president, however, kept his own counsel, rarely saying anything in public.
On May 16, 1988, he finally let loose in a private letter to his friend and adviser John Koehler. That letter is now owned by me and so it is fitting to publish it in this book, thereby giving Ronald Wilson Reagan the last word.
He deserves it.
B
ILL
O'R
EILLY
Long Island
New York
Â
Ronald Reagan lived his entire adult life in the public eye. This media scrutiny could be burdensome to him at times, but it worked very well for our purposes, greatly assisting our research process. One particular advantage is the enormous supply of video documenting his acting and political careers. The reader is encouraged to look at the many press conferences, inaugurations, speeches, presidential debates, and myriad other public appearances, and even
Saturday Night Live
sketches, available online.
And while this book is about Ronald Reagan, the powerful historical moments that defined the careers of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Alexander Haig, Margaret Thatcher, and so many other towering figures are also available for all to see. Video does not go as deep as letters and diaries, but it does allow the researcher to see the anguish or joy on an individual's face (Margaret Thatcher's eulogy of Reagan is heartbreaking in this regard), to hear the rhythm of spoken words, and to know the context in which those words were delivered. Reagan's “Tear Down This Wall” speech is all the more powerful when watching him deliver those words.
As with the other books in the
Killing
series, we consulted a wide variety of sources to tell Ronald Reagan's story in vivid detail. In addition to video, sources included books, magazine articles, archives, newspapers, FBI and CIA files, online databases, presidential libraries, and transcripts of interviews with people who worked with him in a personal and professional capacity. The Zillow website, for instance, allowed us a tour of the Reagan home in Pacific Palisades, which was recently on the market. It was also very helpful that the Margaret Thatcher Foundation (
margaretthatcher.org
) and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (
reaganlibrary.gov
and
reaganfoundation.org
) have catalogued not only the letters of these great leaders but also the transcripts and even audiotapes of their discussions, allowing us to listen in.
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia (
millercenter.org
) is a treasure trove of information about all things presidential. Reagan's diary entries and daily White House schedule can be found online at
reaganfoundation.org
. On a different note, the White House Museum (
whitehousemuseum.org
) takes readers throughout the entire building, with behind-the-scenes photos of the West Wing and the residence through the years.
Travel, as always, was vital to adding great descriptive detail, sending us to locations in the United States and around the world that were pivotal to Reagan's personal and political life. Most pivotal was the day spent at Rancho del Cielo, just north of Santa Barbara. Thanks to Andrew Coffin of the Young America's Foundation for the lengthy and engaging private tour.
What follows is a brief list of the many books, magazines, and newspapers that we used in the writing of this book. Much thanks to the world of Google Books, which allows writers to research a library's worth of great reference works without leaving the home office. These meanderings drew in a number of other historical figures and unchronicled events. Hundreds of books, magazine articles, and newspaper stories were bookmarked and cross-referenced as we wrote. We have chosen to list the ones most crucial to this research. The books include: All the works of Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Andersen, and Martin Anderson, particularly
Reagan: A Life in Letters
and
Reagan, In His Own Hand:
The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America
; Edmund Morris,
Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
; Kitty Kelley,
Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography
; Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus,
Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984â1988
; Nancy Reagan,
My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan
; John R. Barletta,
Riding with Reagan: From the White House to the Ranch
; Del Quentin Wilber,
Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan
; James W. Clarke,
Defining Danger: American Assassins and the New Domestic Terrorists
; Peter Schweizer,
Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph over Communism
; Stephen Vaughn,
Ronald Reagan in Hollywood: Movies and Politics
; Jimmy Carter,
White House Diary
; Lou Cannon,
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
; Michelangelo Capua,
William Holden: A Biography
; Marc Eliot,
Reagan: The Hollywood Years
; David Gergen,
Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership
; Jonathan Aitken,
Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality
; Patti Davis,
The Long Goodbye: Memories of My Father
; and the very emotional
Breaking Points
, by Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley.
We also consulted a broad number of magazines and newspapers marking the passage of Reagan's life and career through the many stories published in their pages. Listing each of the hundreds of articles would have been unwieldy; instead we've given the publications upon which we relied most: the
Los Angeles Times
, the
New York Times
,
Vanity Fair
,
Time
, the
National Review,
the
Washington Post
, the
Daily Mail
(London), the
Daily Telegraph
(London), the
Philadelphia Inquirer
, the
Boston Globe
, the
Atlantic
,
Billboard
,
Variety
,
Forbes
, and the
Pittsburgh Press
.
The authors would also like to thank Roger Ailes, Pat Caddell, Lou Cannon, and Lesley Stahl for their personal insights. In addition, Dr. Jimmy Byron at the Richard Nixon Foundation was particularly helpful.
Â
John Kobal Foundation/Moviepix/Getty Images
© Everett Collection/age fotostock
Universal Pictures/Photofest © Universal Pictures
CSU Archives/Everett Collection
PA Archive/ABACAUSA.com/Newscom
akg-images/Universal Images Group/Tass
The Washington Post
/Getty Images
Dirck Halstead/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Â
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Aaron, Ben
ABC
abortion
Afghanistan
African Americans
Agnew, Spiro
AIDS
Ailes, Roger
Air Force One
airport screening
air traffic controllers strike
Albert, Eddie
Allen, Richard
Alzheimer's disease
Anderson, John
Andropov, Yuri
Ankerson, Ardis
anticommunism
Argentina
Arlington National Cemetery
astrology
Autry, Gene
Ayres, Lew
Baker, Howard
Baker, James III
Barletta, John
baseball
BBC
Bedtime for Bonzo
(film)
Beirut
Benny, Jack
Berlin Wall
Black Panthers
Blair House
Bloomingdale, Betsy
Bogart, Humphrey
Bolivia
“Born in the U.S.A.” (song)
Boyle, James
Bradlee, Ben
Bradley, Bill
Brady, James
shooting of, and aftermath
Brazil
Bremer, Arthur
Brezhnev, Leonid
Brother Rat
(film)
Bryan, William Jennings
Buchanan, Pat
Buckley, William
Buckley, William F., Jr.
Burger, Warren
Burns, George
Bush, Barbara
Bush, George H. W.
1988 presidential election
as vice president
Bush, George W.
Caddell, Pat
Cagney, James
California
Reagan as governor of
see also
Hollywood
Camp David
Cannon, Jim
Carson, Johnny
Carter, Jimmy
Iran hostage crisis and
1976 presidential election
1980 presidential campaign
Playboy
interview
as president
Carter, Rosalynn
Carvin, Michael Lance
Casey, William
Castro, Fidel
CBS
Central America
Chapman, Mark David
Chase, Chevy
Cheney, Dick
Chicago Cubs
China
CIA
Clinton, Bill
Clinton, Hillary Rodham
CNN
Colbert, Claudette
Cold War
end of
Colombia
Communism
fall of
Hollywood and
Soviet
Congress
HUAC hearings
Connally, John
Coolidge, Calvin
Cooper, Gary
Corbin, Paul
Cox, Edward
Cronkite, Walter
Crusade for Freedom
Cuba
Culvahouse, A. B.
Dark Victory
(film)
Davis, Bette
Davis, Loyal
Davis, Patti
Playboy
interview
Dean, James
Dean, John
Deaver, Michael
de Cordova, Fred
Delahanty, Thomas
Democratic Party
De Niro, Robert
deVeau, Leslie
Dole, Bob
Donaldson, Sam
Donovan, Raymond
economy
Reagan policies
Edwards, Penny
Egypt
Eisenhower, Dwight
El Salvador
Falklands War
FBI
Fénykövi elephant
Ferraro, Geraldine
film industry.
See
Hollywood;
specific films, actors, directors, and studios
