Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [116]
his three top advisors: DDPRR; biographical sketches of Baker, Meese, and Deaver were derived from their autobiographies, stories in WP, NYT, Newsweek, and Time. Laurence I. Barrett provided detailed character studies in Gambling with History.
Meesecase: Interview with Richard Allen; Robert L. Pfaltzgraff and Jacquelyn K. Davis, National Security Decisions: The Participants Speak, p. 74.
Their efforts had already earned: On March 19, 1981, the Christian Science Monitor ran a story about the three aides under the headline “Reagan’s Troika: Setting the Pace.” A Newsweek piece on February 2, 1981, also referred to the men as the Troika. The nickname became more widely known after the assassination attempt.
Nearly every morning: Interviews with Baker and Meese. Details about that morning’s meeting came from two memos prepared for Baker: “Senior Staff Meeting Action Items (3/30/81)” and “Meese/Deaver Breakfast and Senior Staff Meeting.” They were provided by the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University.
The Troika entered: DDPR; interviews with Baker, Meese, and Fischer.
Jerry Parr found: Details about Parr’s career were supplied by Parr; Guy described the preview of the inaugural address.
“Do you mind timing me?”: Reagan’s inaugural address lasted twenty minutes.
Richard V. Allen arrived: Interview with Allen; DDPRR; Allen’s oral history (May 28, 2002) with the Miller Center. Allen’s career was also heavily chronicled in the press. The most helpful stories in charting his life and career appeared in the Washington Post: Stephen S. Rosenfeld, “The Return of Richard V. Allen,” April 18, 1980, p. A2; Spencer Rich, “Reagan’s Foreign Affairs a Pro on Policy, Trade,” August 24, 1980, p. A2; and Elizabeth Bumiller, “The Powers and the Puzzles of Richard Allen: The Disappearing ‘Disappearing Act’ of the National Security Advisor,” June 28, 1981, p. H1. Bumiller, in particular, wrote many illuminating character sketches of key players in the Reagan administration.
“we have to find a way to knock”: Interview with Allen; Reagan echoed these words later during one of his most famous speeches at the foot of the Berlin Wall in 1987 when he urged the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” I encourage anyone interested in this speech to read Romesh Ratnesar’s Tear Down This Wall.
In another revealing episode from the European trip, Reagan had some fun with the German language. Shortly after arriving in West Germany, Reagan was sitting in the back of their sedan as they roared down the autobahn. He kept jerking his head to read road signs.
“Everything okay, Governor?” Allen asked from the front passenger seat.
Reagan replied that he wanted to know when they got to a place he pronounced as “Owls Fart.”
“No, Governor, that isn’t a place,” Allen said, realizing that Reagan was reading German road signs with a German word in all capital letters on them. “It’s Ausfahrt,” Allen said. “It means exit.”
“No, there is no place like that,” Reagan said. “You just can’t have a word like that.”
Allen, fluent in German, rattled off a stream of words derived from fahrt: wassenfahrt (trip on water), himmelfahrt (Ascension of Christ), einfahrt (entrance), rundfahrt (tour).
“Can you write them down for me?”
Allen jotted a few dozen German words on a sheet of paper and gave it to Reagan. That afternoon, at a meeting with high-ranking German officials, the future president pulled out the list and chuckled.
at the president’s first news briefing: Transcript of the president’s news conference, January 29, 1981, RRPL; interview with Allen.
While taking a shower: Government psychiatric report; testimony from psychiatrists at Hinckley’s trial.
Instead, he found himself thinking: The government psychiatric report delves into this moment, as did several psychiatrists at Hinckley’s trial. Dr. Sally A. Johnson, a psychiatrist at a federal prison where Hinckley was held in 1981, testified that the idea to assassinate Reagan “resurfaced