Killing Reagan (8 page)

In fact, America enjoys
GE Theater
very much—and Ronald Reagan in particular. The show is a smash hit. Reagan's career is back on solid footing, as is his bank account.

But there is more to being the emcee of
GE Theater
than just introducing the night's show and an occasional spot of acting. General Electric is a giant corporation, with plants located in thirty-one states. As part of his contract, Reagan is required to travel to these factories as a goodwill ambassador. It is the thinking of GE's corporate leadership in New York that having the host of their signature television show intermingle with the workers will be good for morale. Afraid of flying, Reagan travels the country by train and then takes time to speak with and listen to each employee he meets.

“At first, all I did was walk the assembly lines at GE plants, or if it didn't interrupt production, I'd speak to them in small groups from a platform set up on the floor of the factories,” he will later write.

Reagan is surprised to discover that this clause in his contract is just as fulfilling as his time before the camera. For with every factory he visits, he learns more about the economy and local governments, often accepting invitations to speak to civic groups. The political passion that has lain dormant since his stepping down as president of the Screen Actors Guild three years ago is now being rekindled. Reagan has come to believe that less governmental interference is the best path for America. The long train rides give him plenty of time to ruminate on this and to write careful speeches on stacks of three-by-five cards. He wraps a rubber band around each stack and saves them. Someday his words will be melded into a spectacular thesis that will become known as “The Speech.”

It is “The Speech” that will not only change the course of Ronald Reagan's life but also make him a marked man.

*   *   *

On November 18, 1956, a somber Ronald Reagan opens the latest installment of
GE Theater
wearing a coat and tie. James Dean is dead, killed in a car accident one year ago. Due to popular public demand,
GE Theater
is rebroadcasting the production of “I'm a Fool,” starring Dean and his
Rebel Without a Cause
costar Natalie Wood. Reagan speaks fondly of Dean but never flashes a smile or a hint of the trademark warmth that has become synonymous with the host of
GE Theater
. Jimmy Dean, he tells his television audience, was a young actor with unlimited potential.

Reagan's monologue on Dean signals that his years as a lightweight Hollywood actor are coming to an end. He has begun an inexorable journey into ideological warfare and public service that no one, not even Ronald Reagan, could ever have seen coming.

Thus, Reagan's words about James Dean's unlimited potential can also be used to describe him.

 

6

A
RDMORE
, O
KLAHOMA

M
AY
29, 1955

6:00
A
.
M
.

As a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two is about to give birth to her third child, she and her husband are hoping that it will be a boy. They are affluent people, with a strong belief in the American dream.

If their child is indeed a boy, it will be named after his father, who, in addition to being president of Ardmore's Optimist Club, is a deeply religious and highly prosperous oilman. There will, one day, be whispers that he is connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, whispers that will be scrutinized very closely.

But all this is in the future, as the hoped-for baby boy enters the world.

Two miles across the Oklahoma town, a brand-new and modern Memorial Hospital is opening to the public. The newborn baby boy could very well have earned the honor of being the first child delivered in this state-of-the-art facility. That would be a mark of distinction, if only in Ardmore. But Jo Ann, as the mother is named, has opted to deliver at a hospital known as the Hardy Sanitarium, which will make the birth unique in another way. The opening of the new hospital will mean that Hardy, a two-story brick building that has been a vital part of Ardmore's fabric for forty-four years, will now close for good on this very day. Rather than being the first baby born in the new hospital, Jo Ann's baby will be the last born at Hardy.

So it is that John Warnock Hinckley Jr. is born in an obsolete mental hospital.

At first glance, the baby appears to be completely normal.

 

7

L
OS
A
NGELES
M
EMORIAL
C
OLISEUM

J
ULY
15, 1960

8:00
P
.
M
.

The man with three years to live is nervous. Sen. John F. Kennedy steps to the podium and gazes out at eighty thousand Democrats, who are on their feet cheering loudly. The forty-three-year-old patrician from Massachusetts is perspiring lightly. His eyes scan the vast outdoor Los Angeles Coliseum, with its vaulting peristyle arches and Olympic cauldron signifying the Olympic Games held there in 1932. This is a spot reserved for conquering heroes, the same lofty perch where Gen. George S. Patton was welcomed on leave from World War II in 1945.

Just two days ago, the wealthy politician with movie star good looks received the necessary votes to secure the Democratic nomination for president. Now, as the national convention comes to a close with his acceptance speech, bedlam fills the Coliseum. Native Americans in full tribal regalia perform ritual dances on the football field, and low-flying TV news helicopters threaten to drown out Kennedy's words.

With many high-ranking Democrats looking on in person, and famous Kennedy celebrity backers such as Henry Fonda and Frank Sinatra joining the festivities, John F. Kennedy begins his speech: “With a deep sense of duty and high resolve, I accept your nomination.” Kennedy's words are clipped, and he speaks too fast. He has slept very little in the past week, filling his days and nights with political meetings, parties, and rendezvous with would-be girlfriends.
1
“I accept it with a full and grateful heart—without reservation—and with only one obligation—the obligation to devote every effort of body, mind and spirit to lead our Party back to victory and our Nation back to greatness.”

Kennedy now launches into what will become known as the “New Frontier” speech, telling Americans, “Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.” As he outlines his vision for the future, Kennedy launches a series of personal attacks on his likely Republican opponent, current vice president of the United States Richard Milhous Nixon.

*   *   *

A continent away, Nixon himself cannot sleep. The CBS Television network is broadcasting Kennedy's speech live. Despite its being 11:00 p.m. in Washington, Nixon is riveted to the black-and-white TV in the family room of his Tudor-style home in the city's Wesley Heights neighborhood.
2
He endures every one of his opponent's assaults, taking each slight personally but also knowing that Kennedy does this all the time, as he is fond of hardball politics.

“Mr. Nixon may feel it is his turn now,” Kennedy says somewhat sarcastically. Nixon, an acute observer, notes Kennedy's lean face is tense, despite the senator's attempts to appear at ease.

“After the New Deal and the Fair Deal—but before he deals, someone had better cut the cards.”

The audience laughs.

Kennedy continues: “That ‘someone' may be the millions of Americans who voted for President Eisenhower but balk at his would-be, self-appointed successor. For just as historians tell us that Richard I was not fit to fill the shoes of bold Henry II—and that Richard Cromwell was not fit to wear the mantle of his uncle—they might add in future years that Richard Nixon did not measure to the footsteps of Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

Nixon is forty-seven years old, but his thick jowls and receding hairline make him look ten years older. He is a man of humble beginnings—unlike Kennedy, who was born into great wealth. In truth, JFK is closer to the commonly held image of a Republican—“fraternity presidents, tax-board assessors, community leaders, surgeons, Pullman porters, head nurses and the fat sons of rich fathers,” as one writer described the party faithful.
3

Nixon put himself through law school, served in the navy during World War II, then successfully ran for Congress in 1946. He believes strongly in the Republican virtues of fiscal conservatism, small government, and a powerful military. Nixon has a keen political mind. He has watched Kennedy's rise to power closely, recognizing for almost a year that JFK will be his likely opponent for the presidency. Now, mentally cataloguing each item in Kennedy's New Frontier agenda, knowing he must co-opt some of these themes and give them a Republican spin, Nixon concentrates heavily upon his rival.

Nixon's wife, Pat, and two young daughters, Tricia and Julie, are fast asleep, but he has no immediate plans to join them. He listens closely as Kennedy concludes his speech to thunderous applause.

“As we face the coming challenge, we too shall wait upon the Lord, and ask that he renew our strength. Then shall we be equal to the test. Then we shall not be weary. And then we shall prevail.”

Nixon is not impressed. Those eighty thousand Democrats might seem like a lot, but he well knows the Coliseum can hold many thousands more. Nixon also considers himself a better politician than his rival, and believes he can win the election if he can convince some Democrats to swing away from their party. Nixon needs crossover votes.

“In this campaign I make a prediction,” he will tell the audience when he accepts the Republican nomination for the presidency thirteen days from now. “I say that just as in 1952 and 1956, millions of Democrats will join us—not because they are deserting their party, but because their party deserted them at Los Angeles two weeks ago.”

*   *   *

Another man is also intensely watching John F. Kennedy.

Sitting in the living room of his lavish Pacific Palisades home, Ronald Reagan is disgusted by what he is hearing. At the conclusion of Kennedy's speech, Reagan gets up and wanders to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the spectacular view of the distant lights of Los Angeles.

Reagan's mind is made up: he will cast his vote for Richard Nixon.

This will come as no surprise to anyone in Hollywood. While still technically a Democrat, Reagan has been heavily influenced by the more conservative views espoused by his wife, Nancy, who grew up in an extremely Republican household and likes to brag that she has been reading the right-leaning
National Review
since its first issue.
4

The motion picture industry is deeply divided between liberals and conservatives. A minority of actors such as Reagan and John Wayne openly espouse anticommunist, small-government views. But a much larger contingent, led by singer Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, have fallen under John F. Kennedy's spell. This group includes actors Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, and Angie Dickinson. While some keep a distance between their personal and professional lives, Sinatra, in particular, has made it clear that he despises not only Ronald Reagan's views but also Reagan himself. “Dumb and dangerous,” Sinatra calls Reagan, “and so simpleminded.” The singer takes his vitriol a step further by also attacking Nancy Reagan, calling her “a dope with fat ankles who could never make it as an actress.”

Despite his career resurgence on television, and the wealth that has allowed him to build this spectacular four-bedroom, 4,700-square-foot home at the end of a long private road in the Pacific Palisades, Ronald Reagan and his wife have become social pariahs. They are rarely invited to the best parties, and even when a dinner offer comes their way, Reagan has a bad habit of lecturing all within earshot about politics. Nancy, for her part, does not help matters by appearing condescending. “We got stuck with them at a dinner party, and it was awful,” the wife of screenwriter Philip Dunne once remembered. “Nancy is so assessing—she always looks you up and down before she deigns to speak.”

Turning away from the window, Reagan walks past the large stone fireplace and into his small corner office. He sits down and takes pen and paper from a drawer. General Electric has taken great pride in turning his home into “The House of the Future” and has capitalized on that concept by having Reagan film commercials for the
General Electric Theater
from his own kitchen, surrounded by a GE toaster, dishwasher, and electric garbage disposal. But no modern gadget will help Reagan perform the simple task of writing a letter.

Ronald Reagan is not afraid to mail his thoughts to anyone who will read them—as well as many who don't want to. Letter writing from his home office has become the nexus for Reagan's personal conservative movement, and with each letter he sends, his political ambition advances.

With Kennedy's words still echoing in his mind, Reagan picks up his pen and begins writing a letter to Richard Nixon.

“Dear Mr. Vice President,” the letter begins. “I know this is presumptuous of me, but I'm passing on some thoughts after viewing the convention here in L.A.… I heard a frightening call to arms. Unfortunately, he is a powerful speaker with an appeal to the emotions. He leaves little doubt that his idea of the ‘challenging new world' is one in which the Federal Government will grow bigger and do more, and of course spend more.”

Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon first became acquainted back in 1947, when Reagan appeared before Congress. They rekindled that relationship in 1950, when Reagan campaigned for Nixon's opponent in the race for a U.S. Senate seat from California. They've since become friends, and Nixon is actually the reason Reagan still maintains his Democratic Party membership. When Reagan told Nixon he was planning to switch parties in time for the 1960 election, the canny Nixon said he could do more for the Republican Party by remaining a Democrat and using his fame to convince other Democrats to cross party lines with him.