Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [268]
in Sacramento and afterward.
(John Barr)
Ronald Reagan campaigning for president in 1980, flanked by former president Ford and Reagan’s running mate, George H.W. Bush.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
Nancy and Ronnie at Rancho del Cielo in the canoe he gave her as an anniversary gift, 1976.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
C H A P T E R S I X T E E N
REAGAN VS. FORD
1975–1976
Once upon a time [Reagan] said [something] to me on an airplane about the future and about the presidency, and about any possibilities in ’76. He was telling me that I was perhaps overly concerned; that I should not be concerned so much about the future, about the planning, and about making sure you meet all the right people or enough of them, and that sort of thing. He said, “Bob, if the Lord wants me to be president of the United States, I’ll be president of the United States, and you don’t need to worry.”
Bob Walker, political aide to Governor Reagan1
Of Ronnie’s five campaigns for public office, the one I remember most vividly is the only one he lost. That was in 1976, when he challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. That campaign was so exciting, so dramatic, and so emotional—especially at the convention—that in my mind it almost overshadows Ronnie’s four victories.
Nancy Reagan, My Turn 2
ONE RESULT OF NIXON’S DOWNFALL WAS THAT THE ANNENBERGS CAME
home from London and made their presence felt much more in the Reagan Group. On December 31, 1974, they had the first of their New Year’s Eve parties at Sunnylands, and it would become Reagan court ritual. “Lee called and said, ‘Could I take over your whole New Year’s Eve party?’ ” recalled Betsy Bloomingdale. “They wanted to have the Governor and Mrs.
Reagan, you see. She said she would have everyone we had, but she didn’t have Connie Wald, which kind of put me in the thickety-wicket with Connie, whom I adore. She did have Jules and Doris Stein. I remember Doris changing into her long dress in the car on the way out, because she didn’t want to spend the night in Palm Springs.”3
4 2 9
4 3 0
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House This passing of the torch did not go smoothly; in fact, it created something of a power struggle between Betsy Bloomingdale and Lee Annenberg, with Nancy caught in the middle, juggling her steel-beneath-the-bubbles best friend and the titanium-tough wife of the man who could be most useful to Ronnie’s political future. “I told Lee, ‘I always spend New Year’s with my children,’” Betsy Bloomingdale went on, “and she said, ‘That’s okay, I’m inviting them.’ She invited the children the first year, but for after dinner.
The second year she didn’t invite them. And the third year she didn’t invite Alfred and me. Alfred said, ‘I don’t care about going all the way out to Palm Springs anyway. We’re not going to beg for an invitation.’ Apparently it was all because that summer, when Walter and Lee came out here, as they did every year in August, and stayed in the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I didn’t entertain them. I don’t know why I didn’t. I must have been busy with other things. But I didn’t have a lunch or dinner for them, and all the others would line up to give dinners for the Annenbergs every single night.
So Lee got miffed, and Nancy and I understood: one must pay attention.”4
Stirring the pot was Jerry Zipkin, who also spent Augusts at the Beverly Hills Hotel and had not made Lee’s New Year’s Eve list.
Nancy and Ronnie went to the Annenbergs’ again in 1975, the year that Lee codified the houseguest roster. From then on, the same five couples—the Reagans, the Jorgensens, the Wilsons, the French Smiths, and the Deutsches—would stay in the same five guest suites, each done up by Billy Haines in a single cheery California color, with everything matching from the curtains to the wastebaskets. In 1976, however, Nancy favored Betsy, and they went there on New Year’s Eve. The matter was finally resolved the following year. “Ardie Deutsch made it up,” Betsy Bloomingdale told me. “He said, ‘This is ridiculous, that we’re all there and