Rawhide Down (38 page)

laborers in the Solidarity movement
: News accounts and U.S. intelligence reports.

“possible turning point”
: CIA memo entitled “Poland: Possible Turning Point,” March 25, 1981. “Solidarity and the government are on another collision course and will have greater difficulty than ever before in avoiding violence,” the report said. “The chances have increased markedly that the regime will impose martial law even though doing so risks provoking widespread disorder and a military intervention by the Soviets.”

the two leaders agreed
: At his press briefing, Brady said, “The situation in Poland was discussed and both the president and the chancellor feel on behalf of their own countries, that in the event suppression be applied either externally or internally in Poland … it would be impossible to render further economic assistance.”

The president spent the next hour
: DDPRR; Allen’s notes of briefing.

This event, like every other
: “The President’s Schedule, Monday, March 30, 1981,” RRPL; DDPRR; photos, as well as audio and video recordings of meeting by WHCA, RRPL.

Reagan thanked the men
: Tape recording of meeting by WHCA, RRPL.

At 11:30 p.m., after all
: Transcript and tape recording by WHCA of Reagan’s remarks at Gridiron Dinner, RRPL.

During a long stint
: For eight years, starting in 1954, Reagan hosted a weekly television show sponsored by General Electric. He also served as a company spokesman, touring GE plants and delivering speeches to its employees, managers, and civic and business groups. The long weeks on the road and rail—Reagan did not get over a fear of flying until he ran for governor—refined his speech-making skills and honed his political philosophy.

Reagan told the ballplayers a favorite
: Transcript of luncheon, RRPL.

It was a great story
: “I was broadcasting the Cubs when the only mathematical possibility, and Billy Herman will remember this very well, that the Cubs had of winning the pennant was to win the last 21 games of the season,” Reagan said. “And they did.” The streak was an accomplishment for the Cubs. They clinched the pennant after their twenty-first straight victory, this one over the St. Louis Cardinals, on September 27, 1935. The Cubs won their next game, but then lost their final two to St. Louis. When the Cubs started the streak, the team was just 2½ games behind the Cardinals and 2 games back of the New York Giants. The Cubs lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers.

That same morning
: Interview with Chase Untermeyer, as well as Untermeyer’s diary. In describing the trip on Air Force Two, I also relied on Bush’s autobiography,
Looking Forward
, and notes and a transcript of an interview of Bush by Untermeyer on the plane. Bush’s biographical details came from his memoirs, the White House website,
www.whitehouse.gov
, various newspaper stories, and the Naval Historical Center. Tension between Reagan and Bush during the 1980 campaign was drawn from newspaper accounts, as well as Craig Shirley’s exhaustive history of the 1980 campaign,
Rendezvous with Destiny
.

Shortly before eleven a.m.
: Nancy Reagan’s monthly schedule, RRPL; Carla Hall, “The First Lady and Barbara Bush Meet the Arts Volunteers,”
WP
, March 31, 1981, p. D2; photos of event, RRPL. In describing the outfits of the first lady and Barbara Bush, I relied on descriptions provided by Cheryl Tan, a former fashion writer for the
Wall Street Journal
.

A number of commentators
: Nancy Reagan’s struggles are well documented, and I relied on various books, newspaper stories, and magazine accounts to describe her first few weeks in the White House. Particularly helpful were: “First Lady Has Gotten Rid of Gun,” AP, March 5, 1981; Melinda Beck, “Nancy: Searching for a Role,”
Newsweek
, February 2, 1981; and “A Chat with Nancy Reagan,”
Newsweek
, March 9, 1981.

Still, she was where she wanted
: Details of the Reagans’ courtship were drawn from
Where’s the Rest of Me?
and
My Turn
.

Much later, it was revealed
: The
San Jose Mercury News
, which obtained Reagan’s FBI file under the Freedom of Information Act, documented Reagan’s role as an informant in an August 25, 1985, story by Scott Herhold.

Now she was first lady
: Hall, “First Lady and Barbara Bush Meet the Arts Volunteers.”

4: “I’m Not Dangerous”

John Hinckley pulled
: Trial testimony; government psychiatric report; photos of note, USAO.

“Dear Jodie”
: Photocopy of letter introduced at Hinckley’s trial, as well as photos of letter, USAO.

Foster seemed so
: Government psychiatric report.

He told his parents
: Trial testimony; government psychiatric report; Hinckley and Hinckley,
Breaking Points
, pp. 102–6.

left her a dozen
: Transcript of testimony by Jodie Foster; Johnson testified that Hinckley told her that he had left Foster his best poems and letters.

In a series of halting conversations
: Transcript of calls introduced at Hinckley’s trial.

Hinckley was devastated
: Carpenter and other psychiatrists described Hinckley’s response to Foster’s rejection. “And his reaction at the end of that effort was that he had been a total failure, had no ability—I mean he was there, had an opportunity to do this, had blown it, was unable to establish it,” Carpenter testified, adding that Hinckley “was totally incompetent in making contact. So his reaction was one of despair and depression and fury with himself.”

By late October
: After being rejected by Foster, Hinckley traveled across the country. Among the cities he visited during this monthlong period: Washington, D.C.; Dayton, Ohio; Lincoln, Nebraska; and finally Nashville. He purchased two handguns in Texas on September 26 and two more on October 13 from a Texas pawnshop. He finally returned home late in October. He was stalking President Carter during this time frame.

a doctor had diagnosed him
: Government psychiatric report; testimony of Dr. Baruch Rosen.

his writing had grown increasingly dark
: I read many of Hinckley’s letters, essays, poems, and short stories, most of which were introduced at trial. Federal prosecutors contended the writings were simply fantasies. “They are fiction,” prosecutor Roger Adelman told jurors. “If you tried to diagnose somebody based on writings, you would fill the mental institutions in our country with some of our best writers.” Hinckley’s attorneys countered that the writings provided insights into his troubled mind. “I think it’s an insult to our intelligence to suggest that all poetry is fiction,” Vincent Fuller, a defense lawyer, said at trial. “For some it may be. For others it’s a way of expressing their innermost thoughts and that is the case of this defendant.”

Hinckley made a halfhearted attempt
: Hinckley tried to overdose on twenty to twenty-five antidepressants, according to trial testimony. Though he succeeded in making himself sick to his stomach, it was enough to spur his parents to send him to a Denver-area psychiatrist.

In late November
: Carpenter testimony; copy of threatening note introduced at trial.

“Your prodigal son”
: Hinckley and Hinckley,
Breaking Points,
p. 131.

His approaches to Foster
: Copies of notes introduced at trial, USAO.

With that, he neatly folded the letter into thirds
: Photographs of the letter and the envelope, USAO. In describing from which bag Hinckley pulled various items—including the gun and ammunition—I relied on FBI reports documenting where the ammo and gun boxes were recovered by agents after the assassination attempt.

The speech was printed in all capital letters
: Copy of speech on heavy bond paper, RRPL; interviews with Ken Khachigian and Mari Maseng.

had spent part of his Saturday editing
:
Reagan Diaries
, p. 29.

It was now a little after eleven
: Interviews with Khachigian and Maseng; according to the DDPRR, Reagan was in the Oval Office between 10:54 a.m. and 11:24 a.m. Maseng and Khachigian remember meeting with Reagan alone in the Oval Office at about this time. The president’s schedule for the day listed two and a half hours of speech preparation time starting at 11:00 a.m.

But White House officials
: Interview with Raymond Donovan; copy of a memorandum, dated February 17, by a White House official recommending acceptance of the union’s invitation to speak. “This is biggest possible breakthrough group in the AFL-CIO,” the memo reads. “
Very Strongly
recommend this event” (emphasis in original), RRPL.

On election day
: Owen Ullmann, “Labor Leaders See GOP Senate as Nightmare,” AP, November 6, 1981.

already being dubbed
: The first reference to “Reagan Democrats” that I could find appears in a UPI story on March 12, 1981. In a story on March 24, 1981, the
Christian Science Monitor
refers to a group of conservative Democratic lawmakers as “Reagan Democrats.”

But the speech mattered
: Reagan wrote at length in
Where’s the Rest of Me?
about his time as president of the Screen Actors Guild; he was known to regale advisors and friends with stories about his time negotiating contracts with the major Hollywood studios.

The text of Reagan’s talk
: Interview with Maseng, first draft of speech, RRPL.

Reagan read the text
: Copy of Reagan’s rewrite of speech, as well as his editing marks on the rest of the draft, RRPL.

Now, as he reviewed the final draft of the speech
: Reagan summoned Maseng and Khachigian to his office to point out errors in the quote from Gompers as it appeared on his speech cards, according to Maseng. Maseng does not recall the nature of the error, but believes the president indeed found a mistake that had been introduced by someone else. In truth, Reagan most likely made the mistake. The Gompers quote is included on his stack of index cards of quotations, but Reagan’s version has the two errors that were later corrected by a researcher in the speech-writing office, according to various drafts of the address (RRPL). Joanne Drake, chief of staff of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, provided me with the quote as it appears on Reagan’s cards. The full and correct Gompers quote (I will note Reagan’s errors in parentheses): “Doing for People what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis the welfare of the workers depends upon (Reagan used ‘on’ instead of ‘upon’) their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality, which in any way lessens initiative, is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional public (Reagan left out ‘public’) morals experts in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under the pretense of social welfare.” Darryl Borgquist, the researcher who discovered Reagan’s errors in the draft, eventually obtained a photocopy of the president’s quotation cards, greatly aiding his fact-checking efforts. Still, Borgquist said, he often struggled to verify quotations inserted into addresses by the president, especially those attributed to authors. Then the researcher realized that the president was culling the language from movie scripts, not books or magazine articles. Invariably, a call to Warner Bros. would reveal that an author had also submitted a screenplay to the studio, and Reagan had likely read it. The future president had committed it to memory.