Ronnie and Nancy (83 page)

Nancy blurted when Nofziger walked into their hotel suite. “He’s going to embarrass himself if he doesn’t.” At that moment Reagan walked out of the bedroom and, realizing what was going on, said, “Lynwood,” using his pet name for Nofziger, “I’m going to stay in this thing until the end. I still think we can win.”86

Nancy helped save the day in North Carolina, however, by strongly supporting Thomas Ellis, the local campaign chairman, when he pleaded with Harry Treleaven, the campaign media consultant, to air a half-hour videotape of one of Reagan’s hard-hitting Florida speeches. For Ellis, the tape of Reagan sitting at a desk in a studio and talking directly into the camera was reminiscent of his 1964 Goldwater speech. Until then Treleaven had insisted on thirty-second spots filmed at Reagan rallies, and he feared that Reagan’s professionalism in a studio setup would remind voters of his career as an actor. In the four days before the primary, the campaign ran the Florida tape on fifteen of North Carolina’s seventeen TV

stations, and it is generally credited with turning the tide in the state, which Reagan won with 52 percent of the vote.87

There were twenty-one more primaries to go. In April and May, Reagan won Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Arizona while Ford took Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Michigan. In Nebraska, the Ford campaign ran radio ads in which Barry Goldwater attacked Reagan’s stand on the Panama Canal, saying it was based on “gross factual errors” and could “needlessly lead this country into open military conflict.” Flabbergasted, Nancy told reporters, “I feel as if I have been stabbed. . . . Of course, everyone knows what my husband did in 1964 for him.” According to Nofziger, the spots 4 5 2

Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House continued to run “until Nancy personally called [Goldwater] and complained. Reagan won Nebraska anyway by a lopsided margin, but things were never the same again between Goldwater and the Reagans.”88 Edith Davis also made a call to her Phoenix neighbor. “She called him up in his Senate office,” Richard Davis told me, “and she called him a cocksucker.

That was all over Washington and Phoenix—see, Barry Goldwater wanted to be secretary of defense under Ford.”89

The primaries ended on June 8, with Reagan winning California by two to one and Ford sweeping New Jersey and garnering most of the delegates in Ohio. On the last weekend, Ford ran the most negative TV ads of the campaign, focusing on Reagan’s recent comments on the situation in Rhodesia, where black guerrillas were fighting against the white government of Ian Smith: “Last Wednesday, Ronald Reagan said he would send American troops to Rhodesia. On Thursday he clarified that. He said they could be observers, or advisers. What does he think happened in Vietnam? . . . When you vote Tuesday, remember: Governor Ronald Reagan couldn’t start a war. President Ronald Reagan could.”90 Once again Nancy was outraged, but this time the focus of her fury was Stu Spencer, whom she blamed for the ads. “It was quite a while before I could forgive Stu for that one.”91

By July 18, after the eleven states that didn’t hold primaries had chosen their delegates in conventions,
The New York Times
had Ford with 1,102

delegates, only 28 short of the number required for nomination. But Reagan was not far behind with 1,063. About 100 delegates were still uncommitted, and they were fought over fiercely in the month leading up to the convention. According to Laxalt, “We soon realized that competing for these delegates against the White House wasn’t a fair fight. Ron would call them—even visit with them personally—and did reasonably well. But then Jerry Ford would invite them to a meeting in the Oval Office. It was like a guy with a Volkswagen vying for the attention of a girl against a competitor who has a Rolls-Royce.”92

“I was furious,” Nancy later wrote. “President Ford took full advantage of his office. He brought dozens of uncommitted delegates to the White House for lunches, cocktails, meetings, and dinners. He invited an entire state delegation to have lunch with him. In July, he invited Clarke Reed, the chairman of the Mississippi delegation, to a State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth. . . . Over the July 4 weekend, he invited seven uncommitted delegates
Reagan vs. Ford: 1975–1976

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to watch the tall ships sail into New York Harbor from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.”93 The 1976 Bicentennial celebrations marked a turning point in the national mood: patriotism was suddenly back in style.

On July 11, the Reagans were in Palm Springs for the wedding of Frank Sinatra and Barbara Marx, a tall, gorgeous blonde who three years earlier had divorced her first husband, Zeppo Marx. The ceremony took place at Sunnylands, with Freeman Gosden as Frank’s best man and Bea Korshak, the wife of the shadowy Beverly Hills lawyer Sidney Korshak, as the maid of honor. The 130 guests included Spiro Agnew, Sammy Davis Jr., the Armand Deutsches, and the Gregory Pecks.
The New York Times
noted, “Reporters were made to stand outside the gates in temperatures approaching 115 degrees.” The reception was held at the Sinatra compound, a mile down Frank Sinatra Drive from the Annenbergs’.94

After the wedding, Reagan flew east with Sears on a two-day “raiding expedition” to try to turn around delegates pledged to Ford in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The head of the Pennsylvania delegation, Drew Lewis, was “rumored to be unhappy” with Ford, according to Nofziger.95 Sears, who realized that things were looking grim, had come up with the bold idea of having Reagan announce his choice for vice president prior to the convention—which had never been done before—in hopes of winning over enough delegates from the Northeast to put him over the top. Now he decided that the best choice to accomplish that was Pennsylvania senator Richard Schweiker, who was a childhood friend of Lewis’s and a member of the same small religious sect, the Schwenkfelders. The only problem was that Schweiker was seen as a liberal who might turn off Reagan’s core supporters.

Before going to Reagan, Sears convinced Laxalt, Nofziger, and Deaver one by one of the wisdom of this maneuver. On July 20, Laxalt got his fellow senator and Sears together in his Capitol Hill office, and Schweiker, after deliberating with his wife for two days, agreed to fly to Los Angeles for a secret meeting with Reagan. Sears flew out a day in advance and sold Reagan on the idea of a liberal running mate while simultaneously making the argument that Schweiker was not really a liberal. “He’s against gun control, he’s a big man in the Captive Nations movement, and he’s against abortion,” Sears told Reagan.96 On July 24, Nancy had a lunch at home for the Schweikers, Sears, and Laxalt. According to Sears, “I remember 4 5 4

Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House that it was paramount that Justin Dart and Holmes Tuttle be there to meet them as well. ‘We have to do this, John,’ Nancy said to me. ‘It won’t change anything, of course. You understand that, but we’ve got to have them here so they can think they have okayed the decision.’ ”97 After three hours of talking, Reagan told the younger man, “I’ve made a decision, Senator, and I’d like you to be my running mate.”98

On the morning of July 26, Reagan made his announcement on television in Los Angeles, and Schweiker called Drew Lewis, who not only refused to switch sides but also called President Ford and reaffirmed his support. The right wing was outraged; Howard Phillips, director of the Conservative Caucus, said Reagan had “betrayed the trust of those who look to him for leadership.”99 “Never mind that Kennedy had picked Johnson in 1960 to unify the Democrats,” an exasperated Nancy said.

“Never mind that two conservatives on the same ticket had no chance of winning. As always, some of Ronnie’s supporters insisted on putting ideological purity ahead of victory.”100 Bill Buckley, who was supporting Reagan, came to his defense. “It is worth recalling just how traditional, in essence, such a choice actually is,” he reminded his readers in a column defending the Schweiker ploy.101

But in the few days left before the convention, it became clear that Reagan would not pick up more than a handful of delegates in the Northeast, and, to make matters worse, the Mississippi delegation, which had been leaning toward Reagan, was now completely up in the air. Reagan and Schweiker flew to Jackson, to meet directly with the delegates, taking along John Wayne, who told a reporter that he had always thought “Schweiker was a commie, but if he’s good enough for Ronnie, that’s enough for me.”102

At the 1964 convention in San Francisco, Ronald Reagan had been a bit player. In Miami Beach in 1968, he had taken a more important part but was not quite sure how to play it. In 1972, in Miami Beach again, he had performed perfectly, but his was still a supporting role. Now, as the Grand Old Party gathered in Kansas City, Ronnie was definitely a star, playing his part to the hilt. And so was Nancy. In fact, she and Betty Ford nearly upstaged their husbands. As Jerald terHorst, Ford’s former press secretary, wrote in his syndicated column:

The impact of the “presidential women,” their importance in making or breaking a ticket—perhaps even in shaping it—is now of
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such significance that we should no longer discount or disguise it.

The Republican scene in Kansas City last week was a testimonial to the fact. Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan were more than symbols in the intense rivalry between their husbands. They were competitors in their own right, vying for space in the papers and a place in the spotlight, their entrances to the convention hall carefully stage-managed to extract maximum attention from delegates and television viewers. On the sidewalks, street vendors hawked buttons reading “Vote for Betty’s Husband” and “Betty Can Dance But Nancy Can Lead.” Except for the two principals, no other Republican politician in the hall rated the special salute and the acknowledgement of personal influence and popularity accorded the First Lady. One cannot imagine Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Jackie Kennedy, or even Pat Nixon standing at the lectern with up-turned face, right fist punching the air, while defiantly shouting,

“We’re going to win!”103

The Reagans arrived in Kansas City on Sunday, August 15, the day before the convention opened. Flying with them were Maureen, Michael and Colleen, who was now his wife, and Ron, all of whom had done their part in the primary campaigns, and would surround Nancy in her skybox at the Kemper Arena for the next four nights. Though
The New York
Times
delegate count now showed Ford only ten votes short, Reagan maintained that he could still win. In a last-ditch effort to pull off an upset, Sears had proposed a rule change that would require candidates to name a running mate before the presidential roll call. Reagan’s choice, Richard Schweiker, was waiting at the airport with the news that thirteen uncommitted Pennsylvania delegates were finally ready to come aboard, though he refused to provide their names to the press. The in-fighting among the Pennsylvanians had become so bitter that Schweiker’s children slipped a note under Drew Lewis’s door, saying, “Caesar had his Brutus, Jesus had his Judas, and Schweiker has his Lewis.”104

Once again the Kitchen Cabinet comprised a large part of the California delegation: Tuttle, Dart, William French Smith, Jack Wrather, Earle Jorgensen, Bill Wilson, and Alfred Bloomingdale had seats on the convention floor. Their wives had brought Julius again, who spent much of his time coiffing Nancy in the Reagans’ suite at the Alameda Plaza Hotel. The Bloomingdales and Jerry Zipkin had arrived two days earlier for a round of parties, including one given by Kansas City banker Charles Price II and 4 5 6

Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House his wife, Carol, a Swanson frozen food heiress, who were good friends of the Annenbergs and the newest additions to the Group.

“It’s really quite civilized here,” Zipkin told
The New York Times
’s Charlotte Curtis. “I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. I’ve been up at the Olympics with the Jaggers and out in Beverly Hills with Ronnie and Nancy just oozing charm out of every pore. I brought some cheese and that nice pita bread just in case.”105 On Tuesday he had a tête-à-tête lunch with Nancy in her suite and caught her up on the parties she had missed over the weekend.106 A few eyebrows were raised when he and Betsy Bloomingdale were photographed sitting in the Reagan box, just behind Nancy and the children.

On the opening night, Vice President Rockefeller’s keynote speech was completely overshadowed by the boisterous demonstrations set off by the back-to-back arrivals of Nancy, in a crimson Galanos, and Betty Ford, in an aquamarine Halston. The band got so mixed up that it switched abruptly from “California, Here I Come” to “The Michigan Fight Song”

and back again, squeezing a few bars of “The Sidewalks of New York” in between as Rockefeller took the podium.107 During the course of the day, Ford had won enough public commitments to give him a majority of the delegates, but the Reagan forces were still counting on fights over their proposed rule change and an anti-Kissinger platform plank they had introduced at the last minute to undo the inevitable.

The following night, Ford wisely accepted this so-called Morality in Foreign Policy plank, complete with its praise for Solzhenitsyn, overruling the protests of Rockefeller and Kissinger himself. The climactic moment came when the rule change was narrowly defeated after Mississippi’s Clarke Reed, under heavy pressure from White House chief of staff Dick Cheney, threw in his lot with Ford. “So close and yet so far,” an unnamed Reagan supporter told the
Times
.108 “That was when we knew for certain that the race was over,” said Nancy, who had suffered a defeat of her own that evening when Betty Ford upstaged her entrance by dancing in the aisles with pop singer Tony Orlando.109

“The next evening, before the nominations were made, our family had a quiet dinner together in our suite,” Nancy later wrote. “Then we all gathered in the living room, where Ronnie explained what we already knew—

that our long, emotional struggle was about to end in defeat.” Facing his teary-eyed family, Reagan said, “I’m sorry that you all have to see this.”