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By Root 795 0

gleaming with silver. (Interestingly enough, when actually on a horse, the president seemed to favor English saddles, field boots, and old-fashioned flared whipcord riding breeches.) After a short wait, I was taken into a small, handsome room, lined with bookshelves and carpeted in blue, where, from behind a large and perfectly clear desk, devoid of any sign of work, Reagan rose to greet me, his brow furrowed as if he had been deep in thought. He was dressed in a tan summer suit, and once he had me in view, he smiled as naturally as if we had been friends for life. He had the kind of suntan and presence that only movie stars possess, a bigger-than-life quality that is purely physical and that makes it hard to take your eyes off them even when they’re not doing anything. His head was big, majestic, deeply seamed, his hands big, gnarled, sinewy, well cared for, but still a workingman’s hands, the only part of him that seemed genuinely Lincolnesque.

Reagan walked to the middle of the room, grabbed my hand, shook it heartily, then pulled me carefully into the position he wanted. “Smile!” he said, and an electronic flash went off. One of the pretty girls with the Betsy Ross scarves was taking our picture with a Polaroid. I looked down at the carpet and saw that there was a small, neat little cross on it, presumably duct tape. It was the president’s “mark,” the place every movie actor has to reach exactly in order to be in focus for a scene. The president had hit his mark like the pro that he was, then placed me at just the right angle for a handshake photo. At the end of our talk I was presented with the photo, in a special frame, and Reagan signed it for me.

This, I realized, was not only routine for visitors; it was, in many cases, the only reason for the visit. People seemed to come to have their pictures taken with Reagan the way they might with Old Faithful or Mickey Mouse, as if he were a kind of tourist attraction. He didn’t seem to mind—on the contrary, he did it with genuine good nature.

Once we sat down, the president seemed to lose interest in the proceedings. He had done his part; now, it was time for me to do my part, which was to say thank you and go. Since I had substantive questions to ask him, however, I stayed, rather to his surprise, and we chatted briefly, as a kind of warm-up to the big meeting tomorrow, when we would all get together, the president, me, Chuck, Bob Lindsey, and the president’s staff, to discuss the manuscript.

I apologized for all the press about the Reagans and Kitty Kelley, and particularly for an ill-advised interview with me in the Los Angeles Times, in which I had been quoted as saying, “Let’s face it, Kitty Kelley’s book is not likely to be too flattering, if the past is any guide.” This comment had caused Mrs. Reagan great pain, and been reprinted all over the world, to the discomfort of Dick Snyder and Mort Janklow, the Reagans’ agent—so much so that I had promised not to give any more interviews, despite the fact that I was on tour for my new novel The Fortune, a copy of which I presented to Reagan.

“Well,” Reagan said pleasantly, his big, rough-hewn hands on my book, “it worried Nancy more than it worried me.” These things happened, he said. He had worked for the big studios. You had commitments, and you had to fulfill them. You couldn’t just renege on them. He understood that.

I told him that I had agreed to let Kitty Kelley go to another editor, so there would be no conflict of interest in having the same editor for both her book and his. He nodded, and thanked me. He would tell Nancy, and he was sure that it would please her. It would be a load off her mind. For himself, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. It would be hard to imagine a gentler, nicer, more natural, or more sincere person, now that he was no longer just a voice on the telephone—relaxed, easygoing, unhurried, although perhaps a shade remote, I thought, as if none of this really affected him at all. Lindsey’s warning about his coauthor’s lack of introspection had proven only too true. The president