Killing Reagan (32 page)

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
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29

W
HITE
H
OUSE
O
VAL
O
FFICE

W
ASHINGTON
, DC

J
ANUARY
20, 1989

10:00
A
.
M
.

Two years after Ronald Reagan demanded the Berlin Wall be dismantled, it is still standing, and time has run out for Ronald Reagan. It is the last day of his presidency. He and Nancy have just said their final good-byes to the household staff at an emotional gathering in the State Room. Now Ronald Reagan takes a final walk along the Colonnade to the West Wing and his cherished office. Workers have already cleaned out his files, removing every vestige of the Reagan presidency from the Oval Office, right down to the jar of jellybeans he always keeps within arm's reach. At noon, new president George H. W. Bush will be sworn in at the Capitol.

President Reagan rose early, eating a final White House breakfast in the residence with Nancy before getting dressed. At age seventy-eight, he is leaving political office for good. But Reagan is not retiring. Concerned about income, he is already planning to supplement his annual presidential pension of $99,500 by making paid speeches around the world.
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Reagan's last correspondence as president was a parting letter to Margaret Thatcher, reaffirming their deep friendship. She and her husband, Denis, visited Washington last month, fittingly making Thatcher the last foreign dignitary to meet with Reagan in the White House. “Our partnership has strengthened the ability and the resolve of the Western alliance to defend itself and the cause of freedom everywhere,” Reagan would later write. “You have been an invaluable ally, but more than that, you are a great friend. It has been an honor to work with you.”

Thanks to the efforts of Reagan and Thatcher, global communism has been severely weakened. Before Reagan's election, it was almost unthinkable that the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in Eastern Europe would embrace democracy, but that process has already begun. Poland is just five months away from its first partially free elections since 1928. Emboldened, the people of East Germany will soon rise up and do as Ronald Reagan demanded of Mikhail Gorbachev: ten months from now, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall will collapse.

None of this would have happened without Ronald Reagan's unswerving lifelong belief in freedom and America's exceptionalism. England's Iron Lady understands that: “Your beliefs, your convictions, your faith shone through everything you did,” Thatcher responded to Reagan's letter. “You have been an example and inspiration to us all.”

*   *   *

Ronald Reagan opens the top drawer of the empty
Resolute
desk and checks to make sure the workers did not remove a note he placed there yesterday. It is tradition for the outgoing president to leave a simple message for his successor in the Oval Office. Reagan's handwritten letter wishes Bush good luck and reminds the new president that he will be in his prayers.

Despite the warm tone, there is tension between Reagan and Bush, stemming from the campaign. Ronald Reagan endorsed the candidacy of his former vice president but did very little campaigning on his behalf. Some believe Reagan was snubbing Bush, but the truth is the Bush campaign wanted the candidate to be his own man. A barnstorming Ronald Reagan could easily have overshadowed the less charismatic Bush.

The residence has become a beloved home to Ronald and Nancy. Reagan is a sentimental man and very much moved by the sense of history filling that space. The president is convinced that the ghost of Abraham Lincoln haunts the residence. He has stated that he can sometimes hear the creak of Franklin Roosevelt's wheelchair gliding from one room to another, and he once told a friend he could easily imagine the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt mumbling his trademark cheer of “Bully.”

“We were familiar with every room and hallway,” Reagan will later write, “and had the warmest memories of our life in that beautiful historic mansion.”

But now it is time to go.

National Security Adviser Colin Powell steps into the Oval Office to give Reagan his last-ever daily briefing. “The world is quiet today, Mr. President,” the former army general says succinctly.

Reagan reaches into the jacket pocket of his crisp blue suit. He pulls out the plastic card he has carried with him every day since taking office. It authenticates that he is president of the United States. In the event of a nuclear war he will present this to the military attaché who remains near him at all times, whereupon the special briefcase known as the “football” will be opened and the nuclear launch codes revealed.

“What do I do with this?” he asks Powell.

“Hang on to it,” Powell replies. “You're still president.”

*   *   *

Ronald Reagan's last official act as president of the United States takes place just before 11:00 a.m., as he hands the plastic authentication card to his air force military aide. Now, at 12:40 on a bitter cold Washington day, with George Bush already sworn in as the forty-first president of the United States, Ron and Nancy Reagan step aboard a government helicopter to begin the journey back to California. As he is no longer president, the call name Marine One no longer applies to the official aircraft. It is Nighthawk One that lifts off from the Capitol, taking the couple to Andrews Air Force Base.

The moment, in Nancy's words, is “wrenching.” They have participated in a long list of “final” scenes in the past few weeks: final visit to Camp David, final dinner in the White House, and final moment with the press. This morning, at their good-bye reception, is when it hit Nancy the hardest that it was over. “We were supposed to have coffee, but I don't remember drinking any. Then it was time to leave for the inauguration,” she will later write.

As she and Barbara Bush share a limousine to the swearing-in, Nancy gazes out the window at the White House Lawn, wondering if the magnolia trees she planted will survive long enough for her grandchildren to see them. “My heart ached as I looked at those beautiful grounds I was unlikely to see again.”

Time and events have changed Nancy Reagan. Shortly after her return from Berlin in 1987, the First Lady was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy to remove one breast. The procedure was a success, and Nancy's very public ordeal softened her in the eyes of many. With the end of her husband's presidency, whatever animosity may have existed between the Reagans and the media has now been replaced by nostalgic warmth. Walter Cronkite brought the Reagans onstage for a round of applause at the recent Kennedy Center Honors, leading the orchestra in a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne.” And even Sam Donaldson, the ABC newsman who has been baiting the Reagans for eight years, approached Nancy recently to say that he would miss them.

As the helicopter lifts off, the Reagans take one last look at the White House. They push their faces against the windows, straining to see the glory of their former home. Below them sprawl the vast lawns, fountains, and famous columns they have come to know so well. Even as they look down, movers are hauling their furniture into trucks for transport back to their new home in Beverly Hills. The Bush family furniture, meanwhile, is being installed in its place.

“Look honey,” says Reagan, not taking his eyes off the White House. “There's our little shack.”

The pilot finally banks away, steering the VH-60N helicopter to Andrews—the Reagans vanishing into the clouds.

 

30

M
AYO
C
LINIC

R
OCHESTER
, M
INNESOTA

S
EPTEMBER
8, 1989

11:00
A
.
M
.

Eight months later, the White House is the last thing on Ronald Reagan's mind.

A surgical drill hums as the former president lies flat on his back in an operating room. Fifty-nine-year-old brain surgeon Dr. Thoralf Sundt presses the bit against the right side of Reagan's skull and carefully opens a hole the size of a nickel in his cranium. Two months ago, Reagan was thrown from a horse while riding at a friend's ranch in Mexico, just south of the Arizona border.

The horses used during the ride were unshod and left to run wild when not saddled, leading Secret Service agent John Barletta to warn Reagan against the ride. Nancy took the advice, but the former president did not. On the second day at the ranch, Reagan's horse was spooked by a wild bull. It began bucking wildly. At first, Reagan was able to hang on. But the frightened horse continued kicking its hind legs straight up into the air, and on the third buck, Reagan was hurled from the saddle. He flew so high that his entire body rose above the heads of those riding alongside him.

Reagan landed hard, slamming his head into the rocky soil, just missing a patch of cactus. “Rawhide down,” Agent Barletta yelled into his radio, marking the first time those words had been uttered since the assassination attempt of eight years earlier.

Reagan lay unconscious, but he soon revived. At first he appeared uninjured. Nevertheless, he was flown by military helicopter to an army hospital in Arizona, where he was treated for scrapes and bruises, then brought back to the ranch to continue the vacation—albeit without any further horseback rides.

But unbeknownst to Reagan and his doctors, a blood vessel in his head ruptured during the fall. For two months fluid has been leaking into his skull, causing a clot that is slowly putting pressure on Reagan's brain. This condition, known as a subdural hematoma, alters mood and vision and elevates levels of dementia. Patients often complain of headaches or simply fall into a stupor before seeking treatment. But Reagan's hematoma is a silent killer, with no outward symptoms other than his usual forgetfulness. Were it not for his annual physical here at the Mayo Clinic, the former president's condition might never have been discovered. But a precautionary CAT scan located the clot, and Reagan was rushed into surgery.

Dr. Sundt removes the drill, then looks through the opening at Reagan's brain. In the course of his job, the esteemed surgeon glimpses the human brain on an almost daily basis. But this is the brain of a living president. Dr. Sundt has the unique opportunity to save Reagan's life.

Clinically, the procedure Reagan is undergoing is known as a burr. In many cases, it is necessary to drill a second and even third hole to ease the pressure, but the brain surgeon is satisfied that one burr is enough for Reagan.

And that, seemingly, is that. Less than an hour after being sedated, Ronald Reagan is wheeled into the recovery room. His doctors are satisfied that Reagan shows no signs of the stroke, nerve damage, or paralysis so common in elderly patients suffering from head trauma. But the truth is that despite the operation, the fall has accelerated Reagan's debilitating condition.

Nancy Reagan will one day sum it up best: “I've always had the feeling that the severe blow to his head in 1989 hastened the onset of Ronnie's Alzheimer's.”

*   *   *

Four years later, Ronald Reagan is still functioning. The date is February 6, 1993, and the occasion is Reagan's eighty-second birthday. Reagan and Margaret Thatcher chat amiably about their lives since leaving office. Unlike Reagan, Thatcher did not go of her own accord. She was forced out by her own Conservative Party in 1990 and cried as she left 10 Downing Street for the last time.
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Now, at age sixty-seven, she makes her living giving speeches at fifty thousand dollars per appearance and works on her memoirs. The state of dementia in which she will spend her twilight years is still almost a decade away, and she is sharp as she stands next to Reagan in the “Oval Office.”

The birthday fund-raiser is not at the White House but in Simi Valley, California. Tonight Reagan and Thatcher are standing in the exact replica of the Oval Office now on display here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Thatcher and a host of celebrities have gathered for this five-hundred-dollar-per-plate dinner to raise money for the library. Old Hollywood friends Jimmy Stewart and Merv Griffin and media mogul Rupert Murdoch are among the five hundred guests at the black-tie affair. The festive night sold out immediately.

Reagan and Thatcher move into the great white tent pitched on the library lawn, where dinner will be served. The menu is crab-stuffed fillet of sole, prime rib, and baby potatoes, all washed down with the California wines Ronald Reagan has long enjoyed. Dessert will be another longtime Reagan favorite, Häagen-Dazs ice cream topped with fudge sauce.

The night belongs to Ronald Reagan, and it is Margaret Thatcher who rises first to pay homage. She praises him for bringing “the Evil Empire crashing down.”

“If Ronald Reagan's birthday is celebrated warmly in California,” continues Thatcher, “it is celebrated even more warmly in Prague, Warsaw, Budapest and Moscow itself.”

Then it's Reagan's turn to toast Thatcher. “Thank you, Margaret, for those very kind words,” he begins. Reagan's toast continues at length. He wrote and memorized it beforehand. On paper, the speech fills four typewritten pages. “I don't think I really deserve such a fuss for my birthday. But as George Burns once said, ‘I have arthritis and I don't deserve that, either,'” he says with a smile.

Reagan continues. “Margaret, you have always been a staunch ally and a very dear friend. For all of us, I say thank you for the immense role you have played in shaping a better world. And I personally thank you for the honor of your presence tonight.”

As he finishes, the entire tent thunders with roars of “hear, hear” and the clinking of glasses.

Moments later, Reagan stands to deliver a second toast.

Anticipation grows as the former president stands erect, his blue eyes shining, his tuxedo perfectly fitted to his body, which looks a decade younger than his actual age of eighty-two. To the casual observer, Ronald Reagan appears to be fit and healthy.