Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [228]
Reynolds, who had covered politics for the CBS affiliate in San Francisco before being hired by Lyn Nofziger, learned early on that the Governor would not tolerate the slightest questioning of his wife’s judgment.
“The first week Reagan was Governor, I had set up an interview with a TV
reporter from L.A., and I had him waiting in a room. I walked out into the hall and there was Nancy Reagan with Curtis Patrick, a young man who worked for the Governor. They were discussing something she wanted off the wall, and he was saying, ‘Gee, I don’t think we should do this.’ She 3 6 6
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House said, ‘I want this taken down, and I want that put up.’ I was afraid the reporter would hear this—it wasn’t anything bad, but for some reason I thought, Oh, gee. So I went into the Governor’s office, and I said, “Governor, Mrs. Reagan is out in the hall with Curtis Patrick, and they’re having a lively discussion about the placement of something. I thought since we have a TV reporter in the next room, you might want to step out and tell Mrs. Reagan that there’s somebody down the hall.’ He looked at me in amazement and said, ‘You must be mistaken. Nancy would never say or be in a position to cause any problem.’ I realized from that moment that I was mistaken, and that he would always see her as he really thought about her—as the perfect wife and mother.”63
The biggest crisis of Reagan’s first year in office came in the summer of 1967, when he was forced to fire Phil Battaglia because of rumors that he was the leader of a “homosexual ring” on the Governor’s staff. These charges were never proven, and, because Battaglia was married and had two adopted children, it was reported that he was leaving to return to his law practice. All this was actually the result of a coup against the egotistical and aggressive chief of staff led by Tom Reed, Lyn Nofziger, and Bill Clark, the Governor’s appointments secretary, who would take Battaglia’s job. “Battaglia behaved as if he ran the place,” Lou Cannon later observed. “And some reporters sarcastically called him ‘deputy governor’ before Nofziger began using this phrase. My opinion at the time was that Battaglia patronized Reagan. He acted as if he were smarter than his boss.”64
Battaglia had raised suspicions by the keen interest he took in Jack Kemp—the Buffalo Bills quarterback (and future congressman) who was working on the Governor’s staff during his off-season that year—with whom he bought a cabin at Lake Tahoe. Kemp denied any sexual involvement with Battaglia. Battaglia was also close to the Governor’s young scheduler, Richard Quinn, which added to the speculation about “homosexual activities,” in Nofziger’s words. “My concerns were purely political and they had to do with Reagan,” Nofziger claimed. “Because he came out of the Hollywood scene, where homosexuality was almost the norm, I . . . feared that rumors would insinuate that he, too, was one. In those days that would have killed him politically.”65
Reed, Nofziger, and Clark tried to bug Battaglia’s office, had him and Kemp followed, and tracked them to a San Francisco hotel, only to discover that they stayed in separate rooms. Still, they were convinced that Sacramento: 1967–1968
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some kind of “hanky panky” was going on, and produced a report to give to Reagan that was mostly based on circumstantial evidence. Reed, who by then had returned to his real estate development business, informed Tuttle and French Smith that the Governor was facing a “Walter Jenkins situation,” referring to the 1964 scandal surrounding the arrest of a close adviser to President Johnson in a YMCA men’s room.66
Reagan was surprised when Tuttle, French Smith, and nine of his top aides came to see him in late August at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, where he was recuperating from a minor prostate operation. Reed