PART II
The First Term
7. First Priorities: January to November 1981
ON JANUARY 20, 1981, RONALD REAGAN WAS INAUGURATED president of the United States. He stood near the podium at the front side of the terrace of the Capitol building. As Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administered the oath of office, Nancy stood aglow next to her husband, beaming, perhaps thinking about how far they had traveled since arriving at the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas three decades earlier. Her husband had told her back then that Vegas was merely a temporary setback on the road to something much better—God had a plan. This January 20 would seem a rather robust vindication of his optimism.
It was a drab, gray day in the nation’s capital. The president-elect’s hand rested atop his mother’s old, wrinkled Bible, opened to Nelle’s favorite verse, II Chronicles 7:14, next to which the late Nelle had scribbled, “A wonderful verse for the healing of a nation.” And it was that which Nelle’s son prescribed for his nation that day— recovery.
The moment he swore the oath, the former lifeguard spelled out his commitment to rescue America. In his Inaugural Address, which, unbeknownst to the press, he wrote entirely himself, Reagan declared: “We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal.”1
The theme pervaded not only his address but also the ceremony. On the reverse side of the tickets for the inaugural event were photos of Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush alongside the words: “America—A Great New Beginning, 1981.” There was no mistaking the message. The next day’s headline beamed across the New York Times: “Reagan Takes Oath as 40th President; Promises an ‘Era of National Renewal.’” Of everything Reagan had said, the Times focused on those four words.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the change in mood began at that moment, as the fifty-two hostages were freed in Tehran—prompting the Times to continue the Reagan headline into a second line that likewise stretched across the top-of-the-fold: “Minutes Later, 52 U.S. Hostages in Iran Fly to Freedom After 444-Day Ordeal.”
NOW, REAGAN SET HIS SIGHTS ON A TARGET THAT FIRST TOOK form in 1950. In those initial days of the presidency, newly christened CIA director Bill Casey told Reagan that the United States had a “historic opportunity” to “do serious damage” to the USSR. This was sweet music to the new chief executive, and Reagan suggested that Casey share his optimism at the January 30 National Security Planning Group (NSPG) meeting.
It was at that meeting that the subject of a covert, strategic offensive against the Soviet Union was first brought up. Reagan weighed arguments presented at the meeting by Casey—as well as counterarguments by Secretary of State Al Haig—before concluding that Casey’s course made “the most sense.” Reagan agreed with Casey that the administration should launch a concerted effort to play on Soviet vulnerabilities. While the details remained to be hammered out, the initial commitment was made on that January 30, only ten days into the Reagan presidency.2 It was an auspicious beginning.
What Casey put forth was consistent with what Reagan had been telling his new national security adviser and old comrade, Richard Allen. As the head of Reagan’s National Security Council, Allen began instructing his staff that Reagan had a “clear strategy in mind,” a “plan” to defeat the USSR, and was now “changing the game plan” in the Cold War confrontation.3 Relaying what Reagan was saying behind closed doors, Allen told the NSC staff that “the president is determined to do everything possible to destroy the Soviet bloc and end the Cold War with victory.”4
It was also in early 1981 that a group of Pentagon specialists, convened under the direction of Fred Ikle, Reagan’s undersecretary of defense for policy, put together a “defense guidance” that was so secretive that it still remains classified. A copy of the document was obtained by author Peter Schweizer, who has shared some of its contents,5 which include two remarkable objectives: “Reverse the geographic expansion of Soviet control and military presence throughout the world….Encourage long-term political and military changes within the Soviet empire.”6 Clearly, the Reagan administration was wasting no time in committing itself to huge changes. More such declarations, made in formal policy documents, would follow. But first, Ronald Reagan faced the ultimate setback—a near fatal one.
MARCH 1981: THE SHOT HEARD ’ROUND THE WORLD
On March 30, 1981, an individual named John Hinckley—a “confused young man,” as Reagan described him—in a bid to attract the attention of actress Jodie Foster, tried to take the life of Dixon’s former lifeguard, nearly precluding the grand rescue he planned for America and the world. It was a frenetic start to a presidency still in its “honeymoon” period.
We have since seen the image countless times on television: Reagan raises his left arm to ward off a question from an inquiring reporter and then, a second later, the sound of bullets crackle the air; chaos ensues as police scramble for the shooter, and more than one man hits the ground with serious injuries. The president is thrust into the back seat of his limousine by a secret service agent who immediately orders the driver to head to nearby George Washington University Hospital, where emergency surgery finds a dime-shaped, razorthin bullet only centimeters from Reagan’s seventy-year-old heart.
Yet, there was one image that we never saw; it was formulated in the mind of Nancy Reagan, and it haunted her in those initial days after the near assassination. The image is a stunning example, never before reported, of how Nancy was so dedicated to her Ronnie that she was willing to give her life for him. It was shared in February 2006 by Louis H. Evans, the well-known, longtime pastor of the National Presbyterian Church, who kept it to himself for twenty-five years.7
The Reagans attended the National Presbyterian Church during their first weeks in Washington. Evans had become their new pastor. The day after the assassination attempt, Nancy was in need of spiritual counseling. She asked Evans to help her track down Donn Moomaw, the Reagans’ close friend and pastor at the Bel Air Presbyterian Church in California. As it turned out, Moomaw was at a conference, but he quickly hopped on a plane. Evans picked up him at the airport and brought him to the White House, where they were greeted by Mrs. Reagan in a room that included a small group of friends: Frank Sinatra and his wife, the Rev. Billy Graham, and a Los Angeles businessman, the name of whom today escapes Evans.8
Nancy’s words shocked her friends. “I’m really struggling with a feeling of failed responsibility,” she confided. “I usually stand at Ronnie’s left side. And that’s where he took the bullet.” Her husband had come perilously close to dying, a fact not known by the public at the time. Nancy was worried, and now she had deep regrets: If only she had been next to her husband as he strolled to that limousine, positioned between him and John Hinckley’s pistol, she could have taken the bullet for her beloved Ronnie.
It was always understood that Nancy was Ronald Reagan’s protector, the one who played bad cop and watched his back as he trusted everyone, regardless of their loyalty. Yet, this insight adds a heightened level of appreciation for Nancy’s commitment. Such fealty must have been a jolt to Reagan—to know that the woman in his life was so utterly, completely devoted to him, even to the extent that she regretted not being there to take a bullet for him that terrible day in March 1981.
Unlike with the Kennedys, Reagan could not point to Communism as a motivation for the shooter. And while he could not blame Communism for the bullet that nearly took his life, his survival meant he could put Communism in the crosshairs, giving Reagan the opportunity to play the role of assassin.
