Kati Marton (65 page)

“You probably have never …” Eisenhower,
Pat Nixon,
p. 178.

Pat almost never complained … author’s interview with Rex Scouten.

“Once you get into this …” Mazo,
Richard Nixon,
p. 157.

She rarely expressed an opinion … Ambrose,
Nixon,
p. 577.

She hated reminders of the past … David,
The Lonely Lady of San Clemente,
p. 89.

“[Pat] saw a stolen election …” Eisenhower,
Pat Nixon,
p. 204.

Feminist writer Gloria Steinem … David,
The Lonely Lady of San Clemente,
pp. 89–90.

“I’ll have to have a room of my own …” West,
Upstairs at the White House,
p. 357.

The tone of the Executive Mansion … from the Oral History of Constance Stuart, author’s interviews with Gwendolyn King, Susan Porter Rose, Patricia Mattson; see also
Haldeman Diaries
as well as David,
The Lonely Lady of San Clemente,
pp. 164–66, and “Pat Nixon’s Final Days in the White House” by Helen McCain Smith,
Good Housekeeping,
July 1976.

White House memoranda quoted are from the National Archives.

Though Nixon tried … author’s interview with Diane Sawyer.

Pett later wrote her … Eisenhower,
Pat Nixon,
p. 340.

“If she goes …”
Haldeman Diaries,
p. 364.

“I used to see her in the White House …” author’s interview with Patricia Mattson.

“She told me exactly how she wanted …” David,
The Lonely Lady of San Clemente,
p. 145.

“A recommendation has been made …” White House memo, January 14, 1972, National Archives.

“I think it is important …” Constance Stuart Oral History, Richard Nixon Library.

The one told most frequently …
Washington Post
reporter Donnie Radcliffe to the author.

“I knew that the road had been hardest …” Nixon’s
Memoirs,
p. 687.

“Her way of dealing with conflict …” Julie Nixon Eisenhower to author.

“I was not as upbeat as I should have been …” Nixon’s
Memoirs,
p. 717; also, author’s interview with Nixon commerce secretary Peter G. Peterson.

“I’m going to relax …” author’s interview with Gwendolyn King.

“I hope I don’t wake up …” Julie Nixon Eisenhower to the author.

“Just tell it …”
New York Times,
March 16, 1999.

For this chapter I relied on interviews with Betty Ford’s press secretary, Sheila Weidenfeld, photographer and Ford family intimate David Kennerly,
Rex Scouten, Ford presidential aide Stuart Spencer, Ford White House staffers Patricia Mattson and Gwendolyn King, journalists Donnie Radcliffe, Barbara Walters and Morley Safer. Documentation was furnished by the Gerald R. Ford Library, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Though I have met and spoken with Mrs. Ford several times in Vail, Colorado, and at a gathering of former first ladies in Bakersfield, California, in October 1996, Mrs. Ford declined to participate in a formal interview. However, her own memoirs, Betty Ford,
The Times of My Life
(New York: Harper & Row, 1978) and
Betty, A Glad Awakening
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987) are characteristically open and revealing.

The quotes from President Ford are found in
A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford
(New York: Harper & Row, 1979).

In April 1954…
Washington Post,
April 4, 1954, p. 95.

“I’ll never forget it …” Betty Ford,
The Times of My Life,
p. 123.

“In a widely read … article …”
McCall’s,
February 1975.

There was a new atmosphere … author’s interviews with Rex Scouten and Gwendolyn King.

The seventies were, of course … Winifred D. Wandersee,
On the Move
(Boston: Twayne, 1988), chapter 8.

“They were a playful couple …” author’s interview with David Kennerly.

“I kept pushing …” Betty Ford,
The Times of My Life,
p. 201.

“I went to bed laughing …”
Time,
March 3, 1975.

“I couldn’t understand …”
First Lady’s Lady
by Sheila R. Weidenfeld (New York: Putnam), p. 357.

“Jerry has never …” Betty Ford,
The Times of My Life,
p. 206.

“As you are well aware …” document from Gerald Ford Library.

“If she got unhappy …” author’s interview with Kennerly

In August 1975… author’s interview with Morley Safer.

“Why should my husband’s job …” October 25, 1975, Cleveland conference on International Women’s Year, transcript in Gerald Ford Library.

“I had a great deal of pain …” Barbara Walters interview, February 26, 1987.

“I had always used alcohol …” Barbara Walters interview.

I am grateful for the extensive interview former first lady Rosalynn Carter granted me. Additional material for this chapter came from interviews with former members of the Carter administration, including Vice President Walter Mondale, Jody Powell, Gerald Rafshoon, Tom Donilon, Pat Caddell, James Johnson, Maxine Isaacs, Richard Holbrooke and Paul Costello. Journalists Sally Quinn, Donnie Radcliffe, Lesley Stahl, and historian Douglas Brinkley gave generously of their time and knowledge, as
did Ambassador Robin Chandler Duke, Clark Clifford, Rex Scouten, Meg Greenfield, Richard Beattie, Linda Bird Francke and President and Mrs. Carter’s publisher, Peter Osnos.

Peter G. Bourne’s
Jimmy Carter
(New York: Scribner’s, 1997), Rosalynn Carter’s memoir,
First Lady from Plains
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984) and Jimmy Carter’s
Keeping Faith: The Memoirs of a President
(New York: Bantam Books, 1982) are essential for understanding the Carters. Also, Elizabeth Drew’s lengthy
New Yorker
article on the Carter presidency, “In Search of Definition,” August, 27, 1979, and James Fallows’s, “The Passionless Presidency,”
Atlantic Monthly,
September 1979, provided many insights.

She was not prepared for what she saw … based on the author’s interviews with Mrs. Carter and Richard Holbrooke.

One of those who helped … author’s interviews with Pat Caddell and Gerald Rafshoon.

“I felt I became independent …” author’s interview with Mrs. Carter.

“I argued, I cried …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 29.

“We’re home …” Ibid., p. 30.

“I don’t take defeat easily …” author’s interview with Mrs. Carter.

Few believe he could have been … author’s interview with Gerald Rafshoon.

“I loved the politics and Jimmy never did …” author’s interview with Mrs. Carter; also Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 122.

“I have never seen a political …” Bourne,
Jimmy Carter,
p. 345.

“How many of you would like to have …”
New York Times,
March 20, 1977.

“Be kind to us …” author’s interview with Barbara Walters.

Noting awkward lapses … author’s interview with Ambassador Robin Duke.

“Everybody always wants more …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 177.

“But she did not understand …” author’s interview with Richard Beattie.

“Image … became a …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 183.

“I found not one word …” Ibid., p. 182.

“She wanted to be covered …” author’s interview with Donnie Radcliffe.

“We are from Plains …” author’s interview with Rosalynn Carter.

“We were en route to …” author’s interview with Paul Costello.

“If Rosalynn didn’t like you …” author’s interview with Douglas Brinkley.

“I have found …”
New York Times Magazine,
June 3, 1979.

“There was more than a little …” author’s interview with Mrs. Carter; see also Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 198.

“I am closer to the President …”
New York Times,
June 6, 1977.

“The question raised by …”
Newsweek,
June 20, 1977.

“The unspoken question behind …”
New York Times,
June 15, 1977.

Rosalynn brushed off the critics … author’s interview with Mrs. Carter.

“Well, Rosie …”
New York Times Magazine,
June 3, 1979.

“We used to joke …”
Character Above All,
edited by Robert A. Wilson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 184.

“I couldn’t believe it …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 175.

Each of Carter’s aides had … Jody Powell to the author.

“When I come home very discouraged …”
New York Times Magazine,
June 3, 1979.

When Carter told longtime … Richard Holbrooke to the author.

“There’s no way I could discuss …” Mrs. Carter to author.

“I never considered not attending …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
.

“Rosalynn was the one to point out …” author’s interview with Jody Powell.

“The Begins … always seemed …” Jimmy Carter,
Keeping Faith,
p. 329.

“Waiting for Sadat to arrive …” Ibid., p. 328.

When Rosalynn was forced … Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p.281.

“The worst thing you could say to Carter …” author’s interview with Vice President Walter Mondale. 237 Caddell showed Rosalynn a memorandum … author’s interview with Pat Caddell.

“I had majored in social psychology …” author’s interview with Walter Mondale.

“It’s not easy for me to accept …” Bourne,
Jimmy Carter,
p. 444.

Caddell’s hoped-for transformation … author’s interview with Pat Caddell.

One of the many ideas tossed out … author’s interview with Gerald Rafshoon.

“I saw real despair there …” author’s interview with Walter Mondale.

“But there he was, running harder …” Ibid.

Reporters dubbed her the nurse … author’s interview with Sally Quinn; see also
Washington Post,
July 25, 1979.

So Rosalynn set off on another round … author’s interview with Paul Costello.

“All the understandable …” Rosalynn Carter,
First Lady from Plains,
p. 365.

“What would I have done …”
New York Times,
May 12, 1999.

I am grateful to Nancy Reagan for allowing me to spend an afternoon with her, though she did not wish me to take notes of our conversation. I also wish to thank Kenneth Duberstein, Stuart Spencer, Michael Deaver, Frances FitzGerald, David Gergen, Professor Alan Brinkley, Professor Henry F. Graff, Mike Wallace, Gahl Burt, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulrooney and Mila Mulrooney, Katharine Graham, Lesley Stahl, Tom Brokaw, Peggy Noonan, Peter G. Peterson, Rex Scouten, Susan Porter Rose, Liz Smith, Mort and Linda Janklow, Sherrie Rollins Westin, and Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal for their time and their willingness to
help me understand the Reagans. Those conversations form the backbone of this chapter.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan have each written memoirs; his,
An American Life
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990) was less revealing than hers,
My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan
(New York: Random House, 1989). The correspondence between Ronald and Nancy Reagan is reprinted from
I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan
(New York: Random House, 2000).

I have also relied on the following excellent studies of the Reagans: Anne Edwards,
Early Reagan: The Rise to Power
(New York: Morrow, 1987); two works by Lou Cannon, a
Washington Post
reporter who spent many years covering Reagan:
Reagan
(New York: Putnam, 1982) and
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991); Robert Dallek’s
Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984); Strobe Talbott,
Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Arms Control
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984); George P. Shultz,
Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State
(New York: Scribner’s, 1993); Peggy Noonan’s
What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era
(New York: Random House, 1990); Donald T. Regan,
For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988);
Behind the Scenes
by Michael Deaver with Mickey Herskowitz (New York: Morrow, 1987).

“[Nancy] was the ignition …” Meg Greenfield,
Washington
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), p. 216.

“Show me an executive …” Cannon,
Reagan,
p. 304.

“Surround yourself …” author’s interview with Michael Deaver.

“He listened …” Regan,
For the Record,
p. 268.

“Most of my suggestions …” Nancy Reagan,
My Turn,
p. 60.

“In some ways …” Ronald Reagan,
An American Life,
p. 167.

“There’s a wall around him …” Nancy Reagan,
My Turn,
p. 106.

“Janie is a pretty sick girl …”
New Yorker,
July 26, 1999.

“Don’t ask Ronnie for the time …” Michael Deaver to the author.

“I taught Maureen …” Edwards,
Early Reagan,
p. 255.

Reagan was on Nancy Davis’s … Linda Leroy Janklow to the author.

“How come you moved in on me …”
I Love You, Ronnie,
p. 61.

“It nearly killed her …”
My Turn,
pp. 69–70.

Nancy discovered that …
Washington Post,
May 1, 1980, Style, F1.

“They look at me …” Michael Deaver to the author.

The Reagans’ love and need …
I Love You, Ronnie,
p. 55.

“We can preserve for our children …”
The Presidents,
Henry F. Graff, editor (New York: Macmillan, 1997), p. 574.

In those early days … author’s interview with former Reagan secretary Nancy Reynolds.