Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [198]
The Davises had first introduced the two men shortly after Goldwater was elected to the Senate in 1952, but it was only after Reagan’s Phoenix The Kitchen Cabinet: 1963–1966
3 1 9
speech in 1961 that they had their first serious talk. It may be that was when Reagan initially urged him to run for president. The silver-haired Goldwater, who was only four years older than Reagan, had not yet made up his mind, but after he declared his candidacy in December 1963, he asked Reagan to help with his campaign in California.
There is reason to believe that Reagan’s right-wing views cost him his job with G.E. Theater in 1962. Reagan recounted that the show was canceled on twenty-four hours’ notice that March, after he had refused to drop the political content of his speeches and limit himself to promoting G.E. products.
“I thought about the dates already set up for three years ahead—the first one the annual dinner of the Indiana Manufacturers Association. I couldn’t quite see myself spellbinding this group with a description of the new 1963
coffee pot,” he wrote. He told the BBD&O executive who delivered the un-welcome message that “if the speeches were an issue I could see no solution short of severing our relationship.”22
In addition, several G.E. executives were under federal indictment for price-fixing at the time, and Reagan had become openly antagonistic toward the Kennedy administration in his speeches. Two months before he was severed, he attacked the President by name for the first time in a speech at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. Kennedy’s domestic policies, Reagan declared, were little more than warmed-over welfare-statism, and he questioned whether the young president was up to dealing with “the roughnecks in the Kremlin.” Given the Bay of Pigs debacle and the erection of the Berlin Wall the previous year, such views were applauded by the rich burghers of Pasadena, but apparently they were less well received by some of the higher-ups at the company’s headquarters in Schenectady.23
Another factor was at work as well. One month before G.E. canceled the show, Reagan had testified before a federal grand jury investigating MCA for alleged monopolistic practices, including the 1952 blanket waiver SAG had given to Revue Productions when he was Guild president. A week after his testimony, which was riddled with “I don’t recalls,”
Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department asked the IRS for Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s tax returns for the years 1952 to 1955, obviously looking for evidence of a bribe from MCA (none was found).24 Reagan blamed this on politics, implying that the Kennedys were out to get him for supporting Nixon in 1960. Although the grand jury proceedings were closed, 3 2 0
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House there was much speculation in the press that the MCA investigation could turn into a major scandal for the forgetful Reagan and his powerful friends Jules Stein, Lew Wasserman, and Taft Schreiber.
According to Nancy Reagan, G.E. Theater came to an end after NBC
moved Bonanza, “a big-budget one-hour show in color,” to Sunday nights at nine. “The competition was simply too much,” she said, adding that the wholesome Western was “a program Ronnie loved to watch.”25 Lou Cannon backs her up, pointing out that because Bonanza was “routing” G.E. Theater in the ratings, Ralph Cordiner could do nothing to save Reagan’s job.26
Cordiner