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March 28th, 2024

Insight

Remembering Nancy Reagan, formidable first lady

Albert Hunt

By Albert Hunt Bloomberg View

Published March 8, 2016

The list of influential modern first ladies always includes Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton, but not usually Nancy Reagan. That's a mistake.

Reagan, who died Sunday at 94, had a big influence on her husband, President Ronald Reagan, both in shaping White House operations in his first term and encouraging his breakthrough relations with the Soviet Union in his second.

For more than a half century, the Reagans' love story was so intense that at times it burned at the expense of family, friends and politics.

That could be a political liability. Reagan's lavish spending habits and social friends became political baggage. Her fixation on astrology after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband was a distraction for the White House.

Before Ronald Reagan reached the White House, including during his two terms as governor of California, his wife was seen more as a stylish, protective spouse than a substantive mover and shaker.

That changed after Reagan became president in 1980. The Republican right wing was determined to shape the new administration's agenda by putting Edwin Meese, a hard-line conservative, in charge of the White House staff. Mrs. Reagan, working with her old confidant Michael Deaver, instead persuaded her husband to tap James Baker as chief of staff even though Baker had been the campaign manager of her husband's primary rival (and then running mate), George H.W. Bush. Meese instead became counsellor to the president.

The Baker-Deaver duo proved remarkably effective at pushing a conservative agenda in a politically pragmatic way. Reagan won re-election four years later in a landslide.

When Baker and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan switched jobs at the start of the second term, the new White House chief of staff ran afoul of the first lady. That was Regan's mistake. After the Iran-contra scandal, involving arms-selling to Iran in exchange for release of American hostages, she helped engineer his ouster in 1987.

She also encouraged her husband to seize an opening for a better relationship with the Soviet Union. She forged a close alliance with Secretary of State George Shultz -- they had scores of telephone conversations -- at the expense of the more conservative national security adviser, William Clark, a longtime Reagan ally. Clark, too, was discarded, and Reagan signed a sweeping arms control pact with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991, about three years after Reagan left office, the Soviet Union collapsed.

It wasn't that President Reagan was easy to manipulate. But these were controversial issues and there was conflicting advice. His wife, more than anyone, knew how to appeal to him and had his confidence.

After her White House years she became a vocal advocate for research on Alzheimer's Disease, which afflicted her husband late in his life. She also supported some gun control measures, reflecting the continuing influence on her thinking of the 1981 assassination attempt.

She remained a Republican, occasionally appearing at events at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. But she told friends and acquaintances in recent years she was dismayed at the right-wing tilt of her party, which she believed didn't reflect the legacy of her "Ronnie."


Previously:
03/07/16: Hillary's hubris still could trip her
02/24/16: Free trade is bipartisan target in 2016 election
02/19/16: On Planet Clinton, where everyone's a critic
02/09/16: Questions for Bernie Sanders' establishment guy
02/03/16: From steadfast Iowa to contrarian New Hampshire
02/01/16: Bush's journey from front-runner to straggler
01/27/16: Another election, more phony promises on taxes
01/19/165: How Cruz supporters differ from Trump fans
12/23/15: Why Trump and Cruz aren't Forbes or Cain
12/21/15: Speaker Ryan sails through the easy part
11/25/15: As the GOP candidates emerge Hillary's weaknesses will be revealed
11/05/15: OK, candidates: Ask the questions yourselves. Seriously
10/28/15: Imagine an endgame of Cruz vs. Rubio
10/26/15:Ted Cruz has a Ben Carson problem in Iowa
10/20/15: Will Paul Ryan follow James Polk's playbook?
10/20/15: If only Trey Gowdy could meet with Sam Ervin
10/13/15: Voters don't like revisiting the trials and tribulations of Clintonland --- but that doesn't mean Hillary can't win
09/23/15: Why Jimmy Carter couldn't win the South today
09/17/15: Gov. John Kasich's standout record in Ohio
09/03/15: Republicans chart 4 paths to stopping Trump
08/31/15: Here's how Biden-Warren sort of makes sense
08/28/15:Trump upends New Hampshire's substantive tradition
08/26/15:Jeb Bush is hugging the wrong president George
08/24/15: Underestimating Ted Cruz? That's a mistake
08/19/15: US holds steady in a world of economic trouble
08/12/15: Who will capture Iowa conservatives after Trump?
08/10/15: Debate fireworks that won’t make much impact
07/29/15: A plea for conservatives to speak from the heart
07/09/15: Ex-Im Bank's undeserved rap for crony capitalism
06/24/15: All presidential candidates should be in debates
06/03/15: Foreign policy traps await Republicans and Hillary
06/01/15: It's small stuff that wrecks presidential runs
02/04/15: Can Walker be president without a college degree?

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Albert R. Hunt is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was formerly the executive editor of Bloomberg News, directing coverage of the Washington bureau. Hunt hosts the weekly television show "Political Capital with Al Hunt." In his four decades at the Wall Street Journal, he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor, and wrote the weekly column "Politics & People." Hunt also directed the Journal's polls, was president of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund and a board member of the Ottaway community newspapers. He was a panelist on the CNN programs "The Capital Gang" and "Novak, Hunt & Shields." He is co-author of books on U.S. elections by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution.

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