Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [265]
The “Dear Abby” format allowed her to voice her opinion on such subjects as the legalization of marijuana (against), the death penalty (for), and teenage marriage (wait). The column also spawned a parody in the National Lampoon, titled “Nancy Reagan’s Dating Do’s and Don’ts.” A typical installment:
Dating is like dynamite. Used wisely, it can move mountains and change the course of mighty rivers. Used foolishly, it can blow your legs off. Scientists have calculated, for example, that if a man could harness even a fraction of the kinetic energy wasted in a single session of Post Office or Spin the Bottle, he could light up the entire city of Wilmington, Delaware, and have enough left over to discover and mass produce a cheap, effective cure for cancer of the larynx.147
There were a few glitches, such as a 1974 Los Angeles Times exposé involving Anita May. Seven months after Reagan was given the National Sacramento II: 1969–1974
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Jewish Hospital Tom May Award at a gala in Beverly Hills, the Times accused him of reversing a decision made by the state parks department not to renew the lease on a private beach club in Santa Monica as a favor to Anita May. The Sand and Sea Club, of which May was a member, occupied three acres of state-owned land that was slated to be turned into a parking lot to provide public access to the beach. May had written a letter to Reagan in 1971, which led to a meeting between her and parks commissioner William Penn Mott, shortly after which the lease was renewed for another ten years. After the Times story appeared, a Democratic state senator declared that “a few rich individuals have no right to monopolize state park lands.” But Reagan and Mott denied the allegations, and the eighty-one-year-old May, pleading illness, refused to comment.148
The worst glitch of all was one over which the Reagans had no control—
the ongoing scandal in Washington, which would completely upend their hopes for a smooth ride to the 1976 nomination. “I think the situation is being taken care of,” Nancy placidly told a reporter in April 1973, ten days after Watergate had claimed its first high-level casualties, H. R. Haldeman and John Erlichman, who had been forced to resign their White House posts. “The American people are always fair people; they’re not going to condemn a whole party for the actions of a few.”149
The first real jolt to the Reagans’ plans was the October 10, 1973, resignation of Vice President Agnew, who had pleaded no contest to unrelated corruption charges that went all the way back to his days as a Maryland county executive. His replacement by House minority leader and party stalwart Gerald Ford meant Nixon now had a much more palatable heir apparent—a prospect that did not warm the hearts of the Reagans, who remembered how Ford had tried to keep Ronnie from the podium at the 1968 convention. The Kitchen Cabinet actually tried to get Nixon to appoint Reagan instead of Ford. “Oh, yes,” said Tuttle. “I took quite an active part in that, and I think President Nixon made a very bad mistake when he didn’t appoint him. I did my best, and so did Mr. Dart, to convince Nixon that he should. You bet I did.” Would Reagan have accepted the vice presidency then? “Nobody ever turns it down,” Tuttle said, not quite answering the question.150
By the spring of 1974, when Haldeman, Erlichman, and John Mitchell had been indicted and Nixon had been ordered to turn over his White House tapes by the Supreme Court, Ronnie and Nancy were losing their cool. “Nixon should have destroyed the tapes,” said Ronnie, according to 4 2 6
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House Patti. “It’s a witch-hunt. It’s just because he’s a Republican.” “[It’s] terrible what they are doing to this man,” said Nancy, adding, “It’s wonderful that his daughters are sticking by him.”151
But life—and strengthening ties to those who could be helpful—had to go on. In August 1973, Nancy gave the first of several dinners