Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [232]
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House knew this was often the only way to move an inherently stubborn man, perhaps because she had a stubborn streak of her own.
Reagan surely had an inkling of what was going on—in conversations with Deaver he would refer to Nancy as “your phone pal.” But, Deaver recalled, he “never once questioned my relationship with Nancy or asked how I was able to get along with her so well. I think he was comforted knowing his wife had a confidant within the inner circle.”84
Deaver had one more thing going for him with Nancy. He could make her laugh, even when he was telling her something she didn’t want to hear.
Shortly after going to work for Reagan in Sacramento, Deaver met his future wife, the California-born, Smith-educated Carolyn Judy, who had also worked on the campaign. “I was dating Helene von Damm,” he recalled. “We drove to the opera one night in San Francisco and she suggested we stop by a party at the apartment of a friend of hers. The friend was Carolyn.”85 Six months later Mike and Carolyn were married; their first child, Amanda, was born in Sacramento, their second, Blair, just after the end of Reagan’s second term. “Nancy liked Carolyn,” Reynolds said, and she sometimes turned to the younger woman for advice on how to deal with Patti’s rebelliousness. Reagan also became fond of both Deavers; looking back on her husband’s long career with the future president, the down-to-earth Carolyn joked, “When I married Mike Deaver, I didn’t know I was also marrying Ronald and Nancy Reagan.”86
As close as they were, the Deavers were invited to the Executive Residence mostly for major functions, and then Mike would liven things up by playing the piano. Helene von Damm told me, “I would say the Reagans were rather—I don’t know if ‘aloof ’ is the right word—not unfriendly, but there was always a certain distance with the staff. Ronald Reagan was always a rather formal person, very respectful. He would hold the door open for the last file clerk. He was extremely easy to work for, totally undemanding, grateful for whatever you brought him—he would even sharpen his own pencils. But he didn’t socialize in that sense.”87
It was the same way with Nancy Reynolds, who von Damm insists was the closest of all during the gubernatorial years, and whom Nancy Reagan called “my close friend and right arm.” “I never had dinner with just Ron and Nancy at the house in Sacramento,” Reynolds told me. “They really wanted to be private people. They loved being alone. You know, Ronald Sacramento: 1967–1968
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Reagan was a gregarious guy, but he could spend many days and nights alone, or with Nancy, and be perfectly happy. When he came in that door after a terrible day with the legislature, there were always flowers and a wonderful, quiet meal, with no telephone going off. I think he was enormously grateful to Nancy for creating this wonderful sanctuary.”88
“The pols never could figure it out,” Deaver said. “They kept asking,
‘Why doesn’t this guy go out and drink with us?’ Because the Reagans were kind of a fifties family, that’s why. They wanted to be together in the evening.” Nancy agreed: “I remember in Sacramento there was a place called Frank Fat’s, and they would all go over there. Not Ronnie. Ronnie would come right home.”89
Other staffers found the Governor remote, the First Lady dismissive, and their standoffishness problematic. “In his initial years in Sacramento
[Reagan] exuded an attitude of intolerance for legislators,” said Paul Haerle, who succeeded Tom Reed as appointments secretary. “This was reinforced by the fact his wife [was] hardly the ideal person to rub shoulders with legislators. None of them were wealthy. None of them, with very few exceptions, measured up socially to what she was used to in Pacific Palisades and the group they ran with socially there. So there was a sort of an ill-disguised contempt running from Nancy to legislators and legislators