Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [7]
One of the advantages of taking a social approach in writing about the Reagans is that it highlights Nancy Reagan’s role—the importance of which cannot be overemphasized—in Ronald Reagan’s political career. As the pun-Le Cirque: 1981
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dit George Will once said, “Ronald Reagan has one best friend, and he married her.” I would go further: one cannot figure out Ronald Reagan without figuring out Nancy Reagan, too.
Taking this angle has led me to three conclusions. First, the marriage of Ronald and Nancy Reagan is undoubtedly one of the great love stories of our time, with few rivals in fidelity, intensity, and longevity. Second, the social life that grew out of their marriage made Ronald Reagan’s political career possible, mainly because, more than those of any other presidential couple, the Reagans’ social and political lives were completely intertwined.
Third, Nancy Reagan was one of the most powerful first ladies in history—although she was largely successful in her efforts to cover her tracks during the White House years and remained reluctant to reveal the extent of her influence for fear of appearing to be the power behind the throne and thereby diminishing her husband’s legacy. Like Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith, she shielded an aging and sometimes ill husband, though as president Ronald Reagan was never as incapacitated as Woodrow Wilson.
Like Eleanor Roosevelt, she lobbied her husband on appointments and policy, though always privately, never publicly. Like Hillary Clinton, she stood by her man, particularly in times of crisis, though Reagan’s crises were never as sordid as Clinton’s. And like Jacqueline Kennedy, she understood the connection between style and substance, though she never quite matched Mrs. Kennedy in elegance and cultivation.
Ronald Reagan’s five-day state funeral, at once grand and intimate, historic and moving, was his wife’s finest moment. His death came on June 5, 2004, the day before the sixtieth anniversary of the Normandy invasion, which it eclipsed on the world’s television screens. Nancy Reagan had begun planning the obsequies a decade earlier, concerning herself with every detail, determined to make this her final contribution to her husband’s legend. From the first moment we saw her, standing outside the funeral home in Santa Monica, leaning on the arm of a brigadier general as she watched her husband’s casket being lifted into a hearse, this frail eighty-two-year-old woman in a perfect black suit and pearls was a picture of dignity and grace.
More than 110,000 people filed past the casket at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, and nearly as many paid homage in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, where Reagan’s body lay in state for thirty-six hours. The funeral service in Washington National Cathedral brought together four former United States presidents, and eulogies 1 2
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House were delivered by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, and President George W. Bush. Among the four thousand mourners were Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan’s partner in ending the Cold War, and Lech Walesa, the Polish union leader who led the struggle to overthrow Communism in Eastern Europe; the current leaders of Germany, Great Britain, and South Africa; and an array of Reagan friends from the East Coast ranging from David Rockefeller to Joan Rivers.
Prince Charles accompanied the Reagan family on Air Force One back to California for the sunset burial service that same day. Awaiting the party at the burial site on a hilltop behind the Reagan Library were the surviving members of the Group, including Betsy Bloomingdale, Marion Jorgensen, William Wilson, Erlenne Sprague, and Betty Adams. Eulogies there were given by the three surviving Reagan children, Michael, Patti, and Ron, and at the end of the service Nancy Reagan broke down for the first time. According to her old friend Merv Griffin, an honorary