The brush area past the well was rocky and full of trees, and the trails were hidden by vegetation, including madrone trees, oaks, and greasewood. Looking down into the valley, you felt that you were on top of the world as you took in the moss-covered rocks, grand oak trees, and patches of twisted vines and roots. For the President, it was almost a sacred area—a place of complete solace from huge demands and decisions. While riding here, we saw many gophers scurrying around. It seemed like there were millions of them. People who love horses hate gophers, since they not only ruin the vegetation, but they make holes that could cause a horse to break a leg if he steps into one. Eight years later, I found out how dangerous those could be.
We rode together for another two hours on these narrow, roaming trails. The President didn’t say a word, and I wouldn’t think of starting a conversation unless I had to inform him of something. I would always wait to speak until after he’d spoken to me. I knew my place and didn’t want to take advantage of my position.
Once we had entered the brush area, we lost the vehicle carrying the other agents. The agents kept calling me, wanting to know how we were doing and what was going on. After a number of these calls, I told them to reduce the radio traffic unless necessary so that I could concentrate.
When we arrived back at the house, we went to the hitching post, where Jerry was watching for us. He looked worried, his brow all crinkled up, and he waited for the President to get off his horse so he could ask him a question. The President always dismounted his horse by throwing his right leg over the saddle and jumping down, which is extremely dangerous. Most people dismount by throwing their right leg over the horse’s rump, but I could never talk him out of it. He did it from day one.
While the President was tying up his horse to the hitching post, Jerry asked him, “How did it go, Mr. President? How was your ride?”
President Reagan first looked at me and then turned back to my boss. “Well, you finally got me a good one,” he said.
2
The Unlikeliest of Friends
That first ride was the beginning of a special relationship that was forged through not only a love for horses but the many years we spent riding over the trails alone. My boss made it clear to me on that sunny November morning that from then on, I had to be prepared to come out to the ranch every time the President did, and I would go with him anywhere else he was going to ride.
There were things about Ronald Reagan I already knew I liked. The first time I saw him and heard him speak was on October 28, 1980, in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Bond Court Hotel. For members of the Secret Service, a presidential campaign always presents challenges and changes. After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, in 1968, Congress decreed that the Secret Service must cover any viable candidate running for president. Five individuals from different areas of the government determine viability. Once a candidate is deemed viable, he or she starts to have the aura of the presidency, because it’s a lot bigger deal if a candidate shows up with a Secret Service entourage than if they just ride up in a taxi.
I was on the detail covering President Carter at one of the debates, and I was impressed by the way Reagan handled himself. I remember how much I liked it when he kept saying, “Well, there you go again,” and then there was the “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” line. Of course we weren’t, with fifty-seven hostages in Iran and 21 percent interest rates.
After that debate, I remember hearing one of President Carter’s aides tell him, “Mr. President, you did a great job.”
“I did not,” was all he said in response. Everyone, including President Carter, knew Reagan had eaten him up.
Those unforgettable lines from the debates were only the first of many endearing things I would hear from Reagan. He was likable from the beginning, and he really knew how to communicate. His vision for America was optimistic. I had previously covered both President Ford’s son Michael and his wife Gayle and, then, President Carter. During those years the country was struggling, and consequently, many Americans were pessimistic about the future. Now there would be a new man in the White House. His ideas were hopeful—things could be good again, and there were opportunities for everyone. As we learned over the years, those were not just his ideas, but beliefs he held dearly.
* * *
BECAUSE OF HIS UPBRINGING, the glitz of Hollywood and the power of the White House did not reveal much about the man I came to know. Reagan valued decency and hard work and found respite in the simple pleasures of life. Reagan’s core came from his mother, Nelle Reagan. As I got to know him, it became clear that his mother ran the house when he was growing up. Jack Reagan, his father, was an alcoholic who worked as a shoe salesman, most of the time holding small jobs while always on the search for his pot of gold. The family spent years bouncing around Illinois, and as a boy, Reagan never lived in a house that his family owned. Instead, he grew up in apartments above a bank and later a shoe store, as well as various rental homes along the way. Before reaching his teen years, he lived in five different towns and twelve rented apartments or houses. He was often the new kid on the block. Seeking comfort from the difficulties all those childhood disruptions must have caused, he gravitated more to his mother, who was his anchor.
His mother set all the rules and made all the critical decisions for her boys. When Reagan became a father, he would tell his children to go to their mother when they had a problem or a difficult question, because that is how he had seen it done. Clearly, his mother taught him the values for which he came to be admired—being down to earth, being idealistic, and telling it like it is. He got all that from Nelle Reagan.
His father, who could be cynical, had very little influence on him, and his brother, Neil (or “Moon”) Reagan, had even less influence on him. He used to call Neil the “One-Match Kid” because he was a chain-smoker. Neil would light a cigarette, and then before that cigarette would go out, he’d use it to light another one, chain-smoking all day. To Reagan, that habit was a mystery.
Early on in our relationship, the President put me at ease. While riding our horses, I was always conscious of my duty: to protect him. Still, on those early rides, I was surprised by how disarming and transparent he was with me.
Once, after we had been riding for some time in silence, he asked me, “John, you know the best job I ever had?”
I thought I knew the answer to that one, so I immediately answered, “Yes, sir, being president.”
“No,” he replied. “I was a dishwasher in a girl’s sorority.” As he explained it, he could stand around all those pretty girls and get paid for it!
In fall 1928, just a year before the Depression, Reagan left Dixon, Illinois, to enroll in Eureka College. A poor young man, it was extremely difficult for him not only to get into school but then to pay for it once he was there. He worked hard, though, taking side jobs. His work ethic, which he inherited from his mother, ran deep. While still living in Illinois, he also worked as a salesman at a sporting goods store. He liked that job, and he told me that at one time he thought that was what he would do for a living.
Reagan’s humble upbringing kept him modest throughout his life. When he combined his work ethic with his natural good looks and charm, it didn’t take him long to land some starring roles in Hollywood. However, he didn’t have an ego. I never heard him say, “I can do that because I’m president of the United States.” While he was a part of Hollywood and the whole system, it never became a big part of him. Anyone who has watched his movies can see how his plain mannerisms came out on the screen, just as they did in his politics. People wanted to sit and listen to him.
His actions and choices were unlike many of the other stars and climbers around him. Countless Hollywood marriages have broken up because the success of one partner has bruised the other’s ego, but not Reagan. He ended up divorced from Jane Wyman, because she’d just won an Oscar for her performance in Johnny Belinda, while he was busy making B movies. He didn’t care, but obviously she did, and Wyman filed for the divorce. That devastated him, and he never talked about it