Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [272]
At one point, we had mapped out a beginning in which the president would relate his thoughts on leaving office, “perhaps what goes through his mind as he flies back across the country in Air Force One, after the inaugural of his successor, passing over this vast country, thinking about where he has come from, his roots, what he has achieved in these past eight years, what is ahead for those who lie sleeping or working below … as the president of the United States returns to California a simple citizen again.” But no amount of prodding could get the president to reveal what his thoughts, if any, had been on that historic occasion or any other. Given that reticence, Lindsey had done a remarkable job, but there were areas where more was required, symbolized by the fact that Reagan had absolutely refused to even mention his first wife, Jane Wyman, in the book—an omission that I feared might make the reviewers question his willingness to face facts.
Encouraged, I took up the question of Jane Wyman, and while Reagan’s benign expression didn’t change, his eyes looked a little frosty. Bob Lindsey had already brought that subject up, he said, and he’d thought it was settled. There was no point in going into all that stuff at this late stage. Why, he himself hardly remembered a thing about his marriage to Jane. It was all water under the bridge.
But it wasn’t quite all water under the bridge, I thought—he had a daughter from that marriage, after all, so he could hardly have forgotten it completely. I pointed out that reviewers were likely to pick up on this, and use it as a stick with which to beat him over the head. If he left out of his book something as simple and well-known as his first marriage—didn’t even mention it!—they would conclude that he was leaving out even more important things.
“I never pay much attention to critics,” Reagan said placidly. “Never have.” The world was divided between two kinds of people, he said: those who can and those who criticize. The president looked pleased with himself, as if he had just thought this up.
Ignoring the critics was a sensible attitude, I agreed. I tried to pay no attention to them either, in my own small way. The problem was that what we had here was a big edifice, the integrity of which could be destroyed by concentrating on a single brick. Give the reviewers an excuse to dismiss the book, and they would. Why risk it? I wasn’t looking for a whole chapter about Jane Wyman, after all. A couple of lines would do.
The president looked gloomy. Even the thought of a couple of lines about Jane Wyman made him uncomfortable. Long or short, it wasn’t something he wanted to do. It occurred to me that it might not be Reagan himself who was being stubborn about this point but Mrs. Reagan. I made a mental note to ask Janklow to call her, who liked and trusted him, and see if he could persuade her.
With that, Reagan concluded business by standing up and taking me on a tour of his quarters to see all the photographs of his horses over the years. His affability returned as he described each one in detail. I had heard people criticizing his memory, but there seemed to be nothing wrong with it at all. He could even remember the names of Margaret’s horses. It was, I decided, merely a question of whether he was interested in a subject or not. If he was, I was soon to discover, his memory was razor sharp; if he wasn’t, he couldn’t remember a thing.
I walked back to the hotel, and called Janklow, who promised to call Mrs. Reagan, and went off to dinner with Lindsey and Chuck Adams to prepare for the morning.
In the morning we met—Fred Ryan, the president’s genial chief of staff, Bob Lindsey, myself, Chuck Adams, and a couple of staffers—in a large room, around a big coffee table. Promptly on time, Reagan arrived, carrying a brown paper bag and dressed this time in a golf jacket, casual pants, and cowboy boots—an outfit in which he looked ten years younger and even