Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [269]
President Ford called Governor Reagan over the 1974 holidays and, already nervous, tried to tempt him with a choice of jobs: he could go to Washington as secretary of transportation or take the post Walter Annenberg had just left at the Court of St. James’s. Reagan declined, saying, “Hell, I can’t afford to be an ambassador.”6 He agreed, however, to serve on a commission to investigate alleged CIA abuses connected to Watergate; the eight-man panel was chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and included former secretary of the treasury C. Douglas Dillon, former NATO supreme Reagan vs. Ford: 1975–1976
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commander General Lyman Lemnitzer, and Lane Kirkland, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.7
The sixty-four-year-old Reagan was leaving office on a wave of high approval ratings and flattering editorials and about to embark on a lucrative career as a private citizen. By January 6, 1975, he was on his way back to Pacific Palisades, after seeing his successor, Edmund “Jerry” Brown Jr., the son of his predecessor, sworn in. The thirty-six-year-old, unmarried Jerry had already annoyed Nancy by announcing that he would not live in the new Governor’s Mansion upon its completion, referring to it as “a Taj Mahal” and suggesting that it be used as “a halfway house for lobbyists.”8
Both Ronnie and Nancy were relieved to be leaving the drab state capital and eager to get on with the next stage of their life. As Lyn Nofziger, who had reconciled with the Reagans when he ran Nixon’s 1972 campaign in California, later wrote, “I think he was tired of the job, tired of dealing with the petty personalities in the legislature, tired of commuting to Los Angeles on most weekends so his wife could socialize with their rich friends, tired of the small-town atmosphere of Sacramento.”9
Three months earlier, Michael Deaver and Peter Hannaford, a public relations specialist who joined the Governor’s staff in his last year, had presented Reagan with a “comprehensive plan” for his immediate future, including a syndicated newspaper column, a daily radio program, and frequent speaking engagements. Both aides relocated to Los Angeles, where they opened Deaver & Hannaford, in a high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, fifteen minutes from San Onofre Drive. The corner office was reserved for Reagan and decorated by Nancy with mostly the same furniture and in the same warm reds as his office in the state capitol. The jellybean jar was on his desk, Helene von Damm was office manager, and Nancy Reynolds was in charge of advance work.10 Only Ed Meese, who took a job as vice president and general counsel of the Rohr Corporation, an aircraft manufacturer based in San Diego, was missing, but he was in constant touch.11 Although Ronald Reagan was the raison d’être of Deaver
& Hannaford, the PR firm would pick up a few other clients, including the Dart Corporation, the government of Taiwan, and Rockwell International, one of the major Southern California defense firms.12
Reagan’s income reportedly jumped to more than $800,000 that year.13
His five-minute radio program, titled Viewpoint, was aired every weekday on nearly three hundred stations, his column ran in more than two hundred 4 3 2
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House newspapers, and he commanded up to $10,000 for each of the eight to ten speeches he gave every month.14 In all three formats his message was basically the same as it had been since the 1950s: only conservatism could save America from economic disaster and the world from Communist domination. As always, he wrote the bulk of his own material, scratching out his radio addresses on yellow pads as he flew around the country on his speaking tours. It was a clever way to keep Reagan in the public eye—
by his own calculation he was reaching 20 million Americans each week15—and a fairly exhausting routine even for someone half his age.
But Nancy made sure his itineraries allowed for an afternoon nap, and Ronnie kept up his exercise regime on the road. He was constantly telling Deaver and