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good anecdote about a factory worker who had lost his job but nevertheless felt that Reagan’s spending cuts should be given a chance to work, even if they might reduce his benefits and hurt his family. Maseng’s boss had delivered the draft to the president on Friday; the following afternoon, Reagan read the text in his study in the White House residence and then took out a pen and rewrote the entire first section. He had spent years writing and honing his speeches, and though his new job kept him too busy to edit most of the talks he gave, he still spent time revising important addresses or those that meant something to him.

“I am pleased to take part in this Nat. Conference,” Reagan wrote in his smooth and readable cursive. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I point with some pride to the fact that I am the 1st Pres. of the U.S. to hold a lifetime membership in an AFL-CIO Union. Members of your organization have played & do play a great part in the building of America. They also are an important part of the industry in which my union plays a part.”

Reagan then deployed a trademark bit of humor. “Now, it’s true that grease paint and make believe are not tools of your members’ trade but we all know the meaning of work, family and country. For 2 decades I participated in renegotiating our basic contract when it came renewal time. Here too we have much in common. Sitting at the negotiating table we were guided by 3 principles in our demands: is it good for our people, is it fair to the other fellow and to the customer and is it good for the industry?”

Drawing from a trove of hundreds of favorite quotations that he had jotted down on index cards, the president inserted one from Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, which would later become the AFL-CIO. Gompers, discussing the importance of self-reliance, had asserted that the “welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative.” Adding a gloss of his own, Reagan wrote, “Sam Gompers was repudiating the socialist philosophy when he made that statement.”

The president tweaked other parts of the speech as well, scratching out most of a paragraph that began, “The American people have had enough of tinkering here and there with our massive problems.” He also added a few lines asking his listeners to have faith in his plans and in themselves. “I’ve heard the complaints coming from those who had a hand in creating our present situation. They demand proof in advance that what we have proposed will work. Well, the answer to that is we’re living with the proof that what they want to continue doing won’t work. I believe what we have proposed will work because it always has.”

Now, as he reviewed the final draft of the speech in the Oval Office, Reagan had a question about a potential mistake in the Gompers quotation as it appeared in the revised text. He called in his writers to discuss it; then, at about 11:30, he retired to the residence for lunch and some private “speech preparation time.” He would have about two hours to himself before the motorcade trip to the Hilton.

* * *

ONE OF THE city’s prime venues for presidential speeches, events, and fund-raisers, the Washington Hilton had been built in the early 1960s. Its design was intended to inspire: from above, the hotel looked like a seagull in flight. Two of its curving facades faced south, so that many rooms had a view of the Washington Monument and the city’s stately skyline. To entice high-profile visitors, Hilton officials had directed the architects to include an enormous ballroom that could accommodate thousands of guests. They also designed a VIP entrance on the side of the hotel and, one floor below it, a holding room known as the bunker. From here, the hotel’s most important guests could walk down a short hallway lined with presidential portraits and then enter the ballroom.

At eleven that Monday morning, Secret Service agents at the hotel were running through their final security checks. Bill Green, a slight and methodical South Carolinian who had joined the service in 1974, conducted a