Killing Reagan Page 13

  But expressions like that for Ronald Reagan are rare. His experience in the secular state of California imbued him with a practical political strategy, so he mostly avoids the emotional issue of religion.

  Nancy Reagan, on the other hand, avoids very little. She is known to blurt out her personal thoughts. When her son, Ron, attacks Jimmy Carter as having “the morals of a snake,” Nancy publicly defends her boy.5 In December, just one month after the election, she stands up against gun control by admitting to owning a “tiny little gun.” Coming shortly after the assassination of singer John Lennon, the comment strikes many as callous, and there is public outrage over the incident in liberal circles. Reacting to the heat, Nancy fires her newly appointed press secretary for not “protecting” her from the media backlash.

  Sensing blood, the press descends on Nancy Reagan. Soon, she is being described as being cheap and self-absorbed. Tonight Show host Johnny Carson refers to her as the “Evita of Bel-Air,” comparing her to the imperious wife of Argentinian dictator Juan Perón, Eva, who longed for her own unlimited power.

  In truth, Nancy Reagan is much more interested in high fashion and copies the dress and look of two icons: Jackie Kennedy and England’s Duchess of Windsor. To cover the cost of such extravagance, the incoming First Lady expects designers to give her clothing and handbags gratis—under the pretense that they are merely being “borrowed.”

  * * *

  Nancy Reagan wears one of those outfits now, a three-thousand-dollar dress, coat, and hat by the Cuban-born designer Adolfo, as she and Ronald Reagan are driven from Blair House to the White House shortly before noon on Inauguration Day. There they are met by a somber Jimmy Carter and his wife. Per tradition, the two men ride together in a limousine for the short two-mile journey to the Capitol building for Reagan’s swearing-in. They sit side by side in the backseat but do not speak. Instead, each man looks out the window, waving to the crowds on his side of the limo. “He was polite,” Reagan will later write of that stony ride. “He hardly said a word to me as we moved slowly toward the Capitol, and I think he hesitated to look me in the face.”

  Nancy Reagan and Rosalynn Carter are driven in a separate limousine, directly behind their husbands. Rosalynn Carter wears a dull brown skirt and coat with a matching scarf knotted at her throat, making her look somewhat dowdy next to Nancy in her fire-engine red outfit. Today is the end of a dream for Rosalynn, who grew up poor, with a widowed mother who took in sewing to make ends meet. The differences between her and Nancy Reagan, with her debutante past and wealthy stepfather, are many. Rosalynn has attempted to be kind to Nancy throughout the transition, as her husband has been to Ronald Reagan, for the Carters well remember the courtesies extended to them by the Ford family as they were leaving office four years ago.

  However, Nancy Reagan has managed to annoy Rosalynn. She has visited the White House several times, intent most of all on gauging the amount of closet space so that her enormous wardrobe will have a home. Mrs. Carter tolerated having Nancy snoop around, even though the White House was still very much the Carter home. But when Nancy requested that the Carter family move out a week before the inauguration, Rosalynn drew the line. Her answer was a firm no. The Carters remained the White House’s official residents until just a few minutes before noon on Inauguration Day.

  Nevertheless, the transition of presidential power is well under way. The recorders who tally every moment of a president’s day stopped recording Carter’s activities one week ago. The Carters’ furniture is being removed from the White House, replaced by that of the Reagans. Leaving office is hard on Jimmy Carter, for he is exhausted from staying up all night in a last-minute attempt to free the hostages in Iran. It is an act for which he will receive little credit. The Iranian militants would not set the Americans free until Reagan was sworn in, due to Carter’s support for the shah of Iran.6

  Ronald and Nancy wave from the presidential limousine on Inauguration Day, 1981.

  The Reagans have brought California’s weather with them. Tens of thousands of people stand in shirtsleeves and light jackets on this fifty-six-degree day. The crowds stretch from the Capitol Building all the way down to the National Mall to the Lincoln Memorial. American flags and red, white, and blue bunting seem to be everywhere, imbuing this day with a jubilant sense of patriotism. Later on, once word gets out about the newly freed American hostages, yellow ribbons will be tied around every available tree, only heightening the festive atmosphere.7

  But not everyone is joyful. There are many in the media who despise Ronald Reagan. Terms such as lightweight, B-movie actor, and even dangerous are sometimes used to denigrate him, both privately and in print. Ever since the failed Nixon administration, it has become commonplace in the media to disrespect Republican politicians.

  Despite many preconceived notions and his familiar television persona, the press and most of the American people do not really know Ronald Reagan. He reveals himself to very few people. He is wary of the media and easily guided by the strong personality of Nancy, who has more influence than any of his advisers—though even she is often frustrated by his unwillingness to share his feelings. Ronald Reagan is passive in many ways. He can be stubborn when he chooses to put his foot down but often allows others to make decisions for him. He craves approval and applause, thanks to growing up the son of an alcoholic father who gave him little of either. He often appears disengaged, preferring the company of his own thoughts to time with family and friends. He is a loyal man but has put little effort into fatherhood, often ignoring his children when they need him most. Reagan’s world revolves around his conservative ideals and Nancy, with whom he has been known to get annoyed but rarely angry.

  This is the real Ronald Reagan. But the public man is a far different story. To millions of his supporters, the new president is a benign father figure, a man who makes them proud to be Americans. And Reagan himself is proud of that image.

  * * *

  Vice President George H. W. Bush is sworn in first. The choice of running mate was a savvy move on Reagan’s part, as it was Bush who proved the toughest opponent during the 1980 Republican presidential primaries. A longtime party workhorse, the World War II bomber pilot has served as a congressman from Texas, envoy to China, director of Central Intelligence, and chairman of the Republican National Committee. At six foot two, he stands an inch taller than Reagan and shares a similar athletic background. His eyes are blue, and he adds styling mousse to his gray-brown hair to keep it in place. “Poppy,” as he was nicknamed in his youth, is known for being a gentle yet tough man.

  Bush now steps into the thankless role of vice president with the same aplomb he brought to each of his previous jobs. Reagan has plans to make great use of George Bush and his many skills, in a manner normally unseen between a president and a vice president. Unlike Reagan, who can be privately aloof, Bush makes friends easily. He still keeps in touch with schoolmates and navy buddies he met decades ago. The same holds true in Washington, where Bush is deeply connected inside the Beltway. Reagan’s practical side will not allow him to let such qualities go to waste.

  At the stroke of noon, the new vice president steps away from the lectern. It is now Ronald Wilson Reagan’s turn to take the oath of office. He wears a gray vest and tie under his black suit as he places his hand on a Bible that once belonged to his mother. A poised Nancy Reagan is at his side, resplendent in her matching red dress, coat, and hat. In what is a political first for Reagan, all four of his grown children are in attendance, standing with the other invited guests just behind him. And in what is a harbinger of things to come, none of the children is smiling.

  A burst of sunshine plays on Reagan’s face as Chief Justice Warren Burger reads him the oath. “I, Ronald Wilson Reagan, do solemnly swear…”

  The oath takes just forty seconds. Reagan relishes each phrase, repeating words for dramatic impact and adding a pause here and there for emphasis.

  “May I congratulate you, sir,” the chief justice says, reac
hing over to shake Reagan’s hand. As a twenty-one-gun salute echoes throughout Washington, DC, Reagan kisses his wife on the cheek. They turn together and look out on the thousands of Americans who have traveled to Washington to be here with them in person to witness this historic moment. Tonight there will be fireworks in the nation’s capital. In New York, the Statue of Liberty will be bathed in spotlights. For the next twelve hours, Ronald and Nancy Reagan will be celebrated with a dazzling succession of parades, parties, and speeches. Then, finally, will come the humbling moment when Ronald Reagan steps into the Oval Office for the first time.8

  As the most powerful man in the world, Ronald Reagan is preparing himself for the job by bringing in many political veterans. His chief of staff will be James Baker III, a fellow former Democrat who ran the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford and then George H. W. Bush four years later. Reagan is willing to overlook that indiscretion for the sake of an organized and efficient White House. He likes that Baker is a no-nonsense manager known for his crisp analysis.

  Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, and the second man in what will become known as the Troika, will be Michael Deaver, a member of his California gubernatorial staff and a man whom both Ronald and Nancy Reagan prize for his loyalty.

  And the third man upon whom Reagan will rely for advice in times of doubt is Edwin Meese, an attorney who served as chief of staff during the California governorship. His official title is counselor to the president, but the forty-nine-year-old Meese’s actual job description goes much deeper than merely giving legal advice. He and Reagan know each other so well that Meese is often considered the president’s alter ego. However, knowing that such a role can carry too much clout in the White House, Meese has made it a point to meet with Baker in order to sharply define their roles. It is a balance of power that will be tested much sooner than either man is anticipating.

  Thanks to his capable team, Reagan is confident that he can run the country. He is so eager to begin changing America that this afternoon he will sign his first executive order. With the swipe of a pen, he will order a federal hiring freeze. Within a week he will also lift price controls on oil and gasoline, simultaneously setting in motion his personal idea of a free-market economy and making his many donors from the gas and oil industry billions of dollars richer.9

  “It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams,” he preaches in his inaugural address. “We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do.

  “I believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”

  * * *

  The last inaugural ball winds down well past midnight, but at nine o’clock the same morning, Ronald Reagan sits down at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and scans his list of scheduled meetings. He wears a coat and tie, as he will each and every time he sets foot in this legendary work space.

  Reagan is firmly in command. Or so it seems to those around him.

  Little does he know the violence that lies ahead.

  17

  STAPLETON AIRPORT

  DENVER, COLORADO

  MARCH 7, 1981

  6:00 P.M.

  John Hinckley shuffles off the United Airlines flight from New York, eyes glazed from fatigue and face unshaven. He has spent a week on the East Coast in yet another futile attempt to win Jodie Foster’s love. “Dear Mom and Dad,” the twenty-five-year-old wrote in a note just seven days ago. “Your prodigal son has left again to exorcise some demons. I’ll let you know in a week where I am.”

  But Foster once again rejected Hinckley, and yesterday morning at four thirty, a broke and incoherent Hinckley phoned his parents, begging for a ticket to fly home. He is unaware that Jodie Foster has given his love letters to the Yale University campus police, who are currently launching an investigation into his whereabouts.

  Hinckley is among the last passengers to disembark. His fifty-five-year-old father, Jack, is waiting. His mother has not made the drive into the city from Evergreen because she is so distraught about her son that she has spent the day sobbing. The entire Hinckley family has been devastated by John’s behavior. His sister, Diane, and elder brother, Scott, both phoned yesterday to encourage their parents to place John in a mental hospital. “He just keeps going down,” Scott Hinckley told his father. “John doesn’t seem like he can cope anymore.”

  But coping is the least of it. If Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley were the sort of people to pry, they would find a handgun, bullets, and paper targets in the shape of a man’s torso in a small green suitcase hidden in their son’s bedroom closet. But they do not believe in snooping into their son’s belongings or his personal business. They have no idea why John impulsively flew back to New York City, and certainly no knowledge of the grandiose scheme to court Jodie Foster.

  This does not mean that Jack and Jo Ann are completely hands-off parents. It was through their urging that their troubled son has begun seeing a Colorado psychiatrist about his failing mental health. Dr. John Hopper, however, does not see anything greatly wrong with John Hinckley. In their sporadic sessions together over the last five months, Hopper has seen no signs of delusion or other symptoms of mental illness. John Hinckley trusts Hopper enough to confess that he is “on the breaking point” mentally, but rather than be alarmed, the psychiatrist thinks him a typical socially awkward young man who exaggerates his obsessions. Hopper treats Hinckley by attaching biofeedback electrodes to his forehead and thermometers to his fingers in an effort to teach him relaxation techniques.

  Relaxation, Hopper believes, is vital to curing Hinckley.

  The psychiatrist also believes that Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley are mostly to blame. He believes they coddle their son, not holding him accountable for his behavior. They allow him to live at home and don’t force him to find a job. So Hopper has encouraged them to draw up a contract to set in motion the wheels of John Hinckley’s independence. By March 1, he is to have a job; by March 30, he is to have moved out of the house. “Give John one hundred dollars,” Dr. Hopper told the Hinckleys, “and tell him good-bye.”

  Technically, John Hinckley has remained true to the contract. He beat the deadline for finding employment, landing a menial position with the local Evergreen newspaper. But he walked away from that job when he flew to New York. Now, in the busy Denver airport, a heartbroken Jack Hinckley must perform a most gut-wrenching act of parenting: he must tell his son good-bye.

  Jack Hinckley guides John to an unused boarding gate. “Have you eaten anything?” he asks.

  “I bought a hamburger in New York, and ate again on the plane,” John replies.

  They sit down. Jack is direct, telling his son that he is no longer welcome in their home. “You’ve broken every promise you’ve made to your mother and me. Our part of the agreement was to provide you with a home and an allowance while you’ve worked at becoming independent. I don’t know what you’ve been doing these past months, but it hasn’t been that. And we’ve reached the end of our rope.”

  John Hinckley is shocked. Even at age twenty-five, he is so accustomed to having his parents solve his problems that his father’s words stun him.

  Jack presses two hundred dollars into John’s hands. “The YMCA is an inexpensive place to live,” he says softly.

  “I don’t want to live at the Y.”

  “Well, it’s your decision, John. From here on you’re on your own.”

  The two men walk to the airport garage, where John Hinckley Jr. parked his white Plymouth Volare seven days ago. Jack Hinckley has brought along antifreeze, knowing that the car has been sitting in the winter cold all week. He empties the jug into the engine and then stands back as his son turns the key in the ignition.

  “I watched him drive slowly down the ramp,” Jack Hinckley will later write of that moment.

  “I did not see my son face-to-face again until we met in prison.”

  * * *

  Three w
eeks later, John Hinckley parks the white Volare in his parents’ driveway. He has been living at a dive called the Golden Palms Hotel, thirty minutes away in Lakewood.

  Jack is at work, so it is Hinckley’s mother who answers the door. John is flying to California to start his new life, and Jo Ann Hinckley has agreed to drive him to the airport. The date is Wednesday, March 25, 1981. At this same moment, Ronald Reagan is taking advantage of one of the great perks that come with being president, flying by helicopter to Marine Corps Base Quantico, where he will spend two hours on horseback.

  Mother and son barely speak during the hour-long ride into Denver. She does not want him to leave but forces herself to stick with what she and her husband now call the Plan.

  John parks in front of the Western Airlines terminal. Jo Ann violates the Plan by giving him one hundred dollars. “He looked so bad and so sad and in absolutely total despair,” she will later recall. “I thought he would take his own life.”

  But John Hinckley’s flirtation with suicide has passed. He has a very different form of killing on his mind. “Mom,” he tells her, saying good-bye once and for all to his former life, “I want to thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me.”

  Jo Ann Hinckley knows something is wrong. Her son never speaks with such formality. But the Plan must be obeyed, so she overrules her intuition and does nothing to stop John from leaving. If not for the Plan, the course of history might have been changed.1

  “You’re very welcome,” Jo Ann tells her son. Her voice is intentionally cold because she knows she will start sobbing if she lets down her guard. Then, without a kiss or hug or even a handshake, she gets in the Volare and drives away.