The Triumph of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty (best books under 200 pages .txt) 📗

used designer creations that had been worn only once or twice before they were ready to be cast off. “The ladies of the Colleagues were serious indeed about their projects,” Laurence Leamer wrote. “They roamed the precincts of Los Angeles in Mercedes and Rolls-Royces, picking up boxes of clothes, and gowns on hangers. Nancy was driving only a station wagon at the time, but she was one of them.”

The Reagans’ newer, flashier friends—who would later be dubbed “the Group” by the press—were far richer than they were. Film producer Armand Deutsch, a fellow Chicagoan whom Nancy had known from MGM, was the oldest grandson of a longtime Sears, Roebuck chairman; his wife, Harriet, was an arts patron. Through the Deutsches, Nancy got to know billionaire philanthropists Walter and Leonore Annenberg, whose fortune came from publishing. The Annenbergs’ two-hundred-acre Sunnylands estate near Palm Springs would be where Ronnie and Nancy spent every New Year’s Eve between 1974 and 1993. The Reagans also became close to Earle Jorgensen, who made a pile of money in steel, and his wife, Marion, who was a tireless networker on behalf of both her causes and her chums. Another friend was Betty Wilson, a Pennzoil heiress married to wealthy rancher and oil-equipment manufacturer William Wilson, later Ronnie’s envoy to the Vatican.

Fabulously fun Betsy Bloomingdale—her husband, Alfred, was a grandson of the department store founder and ran the successful Diners Club credit card franchise—was Nancy’s closest confidant and her role model on all matters of taste and style. Betsy’s legendary wardrobe of haute couture filled eleven meticulously organized closets. Through Betsy, Nancy was introduced to favored designers such as Adolfo Sardiña, known only as Adolfo to his legions of wealthy female devotees. Betsy’s interesting friends also included “social moth” Jerry Zipkin, a gay, uber-sophisticated Manhattan real estate heir. In its 1995 obituary of Zipkin, the New York Times referred to him as “a man about everywhere.” Zipkin was a fixture at society galas, usually as a “walker” escorting rich women whose husbands had other places they would rather be. Nancy saw him as “a sort of modern-day Oscar Wilde.” For decades, Zipkin would be her near-daily source of news and gossip, and a channel through which others gained access to her. When Nancy was in the White House, Zipkin regularly mailed her batches of New York newspaper clippings, with the juicy parts highlighted in yellow marker.

It took no small amount of prodding from Nancy to get her husband to plunge into her rapidly growing milieu of fellow climbers. High-powered socializing was not how Ronnie would have chosen to spend their time. “He was great in front of an audience, great in a room, great telling people stories, putting them at ease, making them laugh. But left to his own devices, he would have much preferred to just go to the ranch and ride horses and cut brush and pound fence posts and things like that,” their son, Ron, said. “She got him out and about and meeting people, both in California and in Washington. Even to the extent of arranging ‘playdates’ for him. As amicable and genial and fun to be with as he was, he had virtually no close friends. Lots of acquaintances, lots of what I and some of my friends used to call the ‘El Friendos,’ who were sort of the Kitchen Cabinet types, but these were not people that he really hung out with.”

Stu Spencer, the top political adviser who moved in and out of Ronnie’s orbit for more than two decades, put it more succinctly: “Reagan would have been a great hermit, a perfect hermit.” Others around Ronnie often used the exact same word—hermit—to describe his inner nature. Spencer and his partner, Bill Roberts, were among the first people Ronnie and his backers sought out as he began thinking more seriously about running for governor. They had been recommended to Ronnie by Goldwater, against whom their firm had worked in the 1964 GOP primary in California. The duo had guided New York governor Nelson Rockefeller’s campaign to a surprisingly close second-place finish. “I’d hire those sons of bitches,” Goldwater advised Ronnie.

That was a time when professional political consulting was still in its infancy; campaigns before then were generally run by amateurs and cronies. The young operatives started their firm in 1960 and quickly developed a reputation for sure-footed strategy and hardball tactics. Spencer and Roberts had already been approached to run the campaign of one of Ronnie’s prospective GOP opponents, former San Francisco mayor George Christopher, who was considered the favorite in the Republican race. But when they were summoned to Pacific Palisades for a meeting in March 1965, they sensed something in the fading movie actor that made him worth a gamble. “This guy could do it,” they told each other. “If we handle it right, this guy could make it.”

But Spencer and Roberts also recognized that both Ronnie and his wife were Hollywood people, which meant they were clueless about what running for office would entail. They had potential, but they were going to require a lot of preparation. What was also clear, from the outset, was that the Reagans came as a package deal. During that first session in their living room, Nancy sat in a chair, her legs tucked under her. She listened intently and said almost nothing. “Nancy was in every one of the meetings we had with Reagan. She was quiet. With those big eyes of hers, she’d be watching you almost warily. Every now and then she’d ask a question, but probably less than a handful of times,” Spencer recalled. “I was always sure she had plenty to say to him after Bill and I left.”

At one point during their initial meeting, Nancy got up and went into a bedroom. Spencer followed her, and asked, “Nancy, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s just too much. It’s a whole new world, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.”

“You can do it,” Spencer told her.