Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [300]
‘What’s going on?’ No one looked directly at me, almost always a bad sign.
Then Reagan said, ‘Mike, the fellows here have been telling me about the way you’re running the fund-raising efforts, and we’re losing money. As a matter of fact, they tell me I have to pay thirty thousand dollars a month to lease my space in your office building.’ I was more stunned than angry.”
Deaver, who knew that Reagan’s monthly charges, including everything from secretaries to limousines, ran from only about $5,000 to $10,000, told him, “If these gentlemen have convinced you that I am ripping you off, after all these years, then I’m out. I’m leaving.” Reagan followed him out of the room, saying, “No, this is not what I want.” Deaver snapped, “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s what I want.”68
Deaver’s departure shocked Reagan’s entourage. As one insider told The New York Times, “There’s a new Ronald Reagan who wants the Presidency so bad that he’s willing to dump old friends.”69 Nancy Reynolds told me,
“John Sears got Mike fired. Boy, that was a tough one. I was furious and sick and hurt that he had that much influence. Mike was really hurt, and Nancy Reagan wasn’t happy either.”70
The following Monday, Martin Anderson, who was close to both Deaver and Nancy, announced that he was leaving the campaign to return to his position as senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.71
Anderson put all the blame on Sears. As he told me, “Sears was a brilliant Reagan vs. Carter: 1977–1980
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strategist, but he developed what I’d call an incipient megalomania. He did not like any criticism. At policy meetings he would propose something as a political stroke. And I’d say that’s great but it wouldn’t work, and I’d tell him why, and he did not like that. So he took a couple of hundred thousand bucks of campaign money and set up a competing policy shop in Washington, without telling me. I found out about that and had a long talk with him. Anyways, I went on strike. I quit. I walked away. He spent about six hours trying to talk me out of it, but there was no way to deal with him.”72
Perhaps Sears was aware of the nickname people were using with increasing frequency about him: Rasputin.73
In his memoir, Revolution, Anderson attributes all this court intrigue partly to Reagan’s “highly unusual” and “unique” managerial style: He made no demands, and gave almost no instructions. Essentially, he just responded to whatever was brought to his attention and said yes or no, or I’ll think about it. At times he would just change the subject, maybe tell a funny story, and you would not find out what he thought about it, one way or the other. His style of managing was totally different from the model of the classic executive who exercised leadership by planning and scheming, and barking out orders to his subordinates.
It was something that all those who had worked closely and intimately with Ronald Reagan knew. Ed Meese knew. Mike Deaver knew. And so did Dick Allen and Lyn Nofziger and Peter Hannaford and John Sears. . . . But we rarely talked about it among ourselves and never to outsiders.
We kept it a secret.
We just accepted Reagan as he was and adjusted ourselves to his manner. If that was the way he wanted to do things, fine. At the time it seemed like a small thing, an eccentricity that was dwarfed by his multiple, stunning qualities.
So everyone overlooked and compensated for the fact that he made decisions like an ancient king or a Turkish pasha, passively letting his subjects serve him, selecting only those morsels of public policy that were especially tasty. Rarely did he ask searching questions and demand to know why someone had or had not done something. He just sat back in a supremely calm, relaxed manner and waited until important things were brought to him. And then he would act, quickly, decisively, and usually, very wisely. . . .
This kind of behavior in a political candidate is unheard of. From the viewpoint of a jealous, competitive