Even as of the fall of 1975, the Ford White House still could not come to grips with the fact that Reagan was indeed about to jump in the race, despite many staff problems. Cheney asked Lou Cannon if he thought Reagan would run and also asked Spencer. Both men knew Reagan and both were startled that even at that late date the people around Ford could not seem to accept this eventuality.
72
Reagan’s startup problems took place without the glare of the national media that Gerald Ford faced. For Ford, every incident, big and small, seemed to make the front pages and the network news. A United Press International story, dateline Springfield, Massachusetts in November of 1975 seemed almost typical for Ford: “President Ford was rapped on the side of the head today with a 24-inch flag staff by an excited youngster. . . . There was no blood where Ford was struck on the right temple and there was no sign he was injured. . . .”
In Hartford, Connecticut, a street left open by that city’s police allowed a pickup truck to barrel into the side of the Presidential limousine. Ford was unhurt, but the Republican State Chairman, Fred Biebel, jammed his thumb in the incident.
Nessen later wrote in his book,
Also damaging to Ford’s image were the news photos of him [taken] at the instant he saw the gun in Sacramento and the instant he heard the shot in San Francisco. In both pictures, his eyes were blank, his face white and slack, his expression dazed and frightened. It was not a “Presidential” look to inspire confidence.
In the autumn and winter of 1975, Ford’s public standing slumped. Some members of the White House staff blamed this on the assassination attempts and the auto accident, which they felt had created an impression that Ford was an unPresidential klutz forever stumbling into some kind of accident.
73
Contained in a memorandum prepared for Nessen, Ford staffer Jim Shuman sent along his observations that Reagan’s “general ignorance of national affairs— assuming it will continue—will make President Ford look better and better every day.” He concluded, however, in what may have been the greatest understatement of 1975 by saying, “Reagan could be a serious threat.”
74
At the end of the year, Ford’s pollster, Robert Teeter, presented him with a gloomy assessment of the Republican Party and Ford’s standing in the party and as the President. Ford got low ratings from the American people on being a strong leader or intelligent or competent. Teeter also wrote in a memo to Cheney that “détente is a particularly unpopular idea with Republican primary voters and the word is worse.”
75
Teeter also authored a grim memo to Callaway about Reagan’s threat. Ford’s helplessness was summed up when Teeter wrote, “The Christmas lull may well be the best thing we have going for us in that it should blunt Reagan’s momentum.”
76
And when Teeter asked the American people in a poll conducted for the campaign to name one accomplishment of Ford’s, 61 percent of the respondents said, “Nothing.”
77
4
CITIZENS FOR REAGAN, TAKE ONE
“We’re disgusted with Reagan for not making the commitment.
He’s our man, but he just won’t come on in.”
B
y 1975, conservative Republicans had already decided that Ronald Reagan was their man and that he would run for the party’s Presidential nomination against Gerald Ford. They believed that Reagan had waited too long in 1968 before challenging Richard Nixon for the nomination. Lyn Nofziger, who had little use for Gerald Ford and Bob Walker, formerly of the Governor’s staff in Sacramento, thought Reagan had already waited long enough—maybe too long.
Peter Hannaford and Mike Deaver, now in business for themselves, arranged with the help of radio producer Harry O’Connor for Reagan to do weekly commentaries on what would eventually total nearly three hundred stations around the country. Although Reagan was keeping his own counsel on a 1976 bid, many grassroots conservatives would not be bothered with anything so frustrating as waiting for Reagan to eventually make up his mind. Shortly after Reagan left office in Sacramento in January, Young America’s Foundation initiated the “Reagan Radio Project,” directed by YAF Executive Director Frank Donatelli and YAF Chairman Ron Docksai. Donatelli was of the young breed of conservative activists who had been drawn to conservatism by the message of Barry Goldwater in 1964. He had read
Conscience of a Conservative
, Goldwater’s clarion call and had been deeply impressed with the Arizonan’s clear thinking and message.
The Foundation’s affiliated organization, Young Americans for Freedom, had endorsed Reagan for President in 1968 over Nixon and again, in 1972, over Nixon. Of course, Reagan did not run against Nixon in 1972 and in fact had campaigned for his old colleague. But this did not stop YAF from voicing support for their hero. Reagan joined the YAF Board and had spoken at many of their conventions. A long, warm relationship existed between the old actor and the young YAFers.
The project, which consisted of raising money in the mail to independently support Reagan’s weekly radio addresses, was undertaken by Bruce Eberle who was just beginning his direct mail firm; becoming yet another competitor to the “King of Conservative Direct Mail,” Richard Viguerie. The YAF house file (its list of proven financial donors created through “prospecting” mail) eventually grew to over fourteen thousand names. Contributors had been asked to support the “Reagan Radio Project,” and this list became the basis of the direct mail house file for the eventual Reagan campaign.
Furthermore, the house organ of the conservative movement,
Human
Events
, underwrote many of Reagan’s radio commentaries. The publication was led by two tough-minded conservatives, Tom Winter and Allan Ryskind. Between the efforts of Deaver, Hannaford, O’Connor, YAF, and
Human Events
, Reagan would solidify his position as the conservative with the greatest nationwide name recognition. But one California conservative summed up conservative angst over Reagan’s indecision in the spring of 1975 in
Newsweek
: “We’re disgusted with him for not making the commitment. He’s our man, but he just won’t come on in.”
1
Reagan also had support from the Young Republicans. This group was headquartered inside the Republican National Committee. An incumbent President should have been able to count on the institutional support of his party, even in a hotly contested primary. But in the spring of 1975, the Young Republicans elected a new National Chairman, Jack Mueller of Wyoming. The President called Mueller to congratulate him on his election and asked Mueller’s support in the upcoming campaign. Mueller, then in his mid-twenties, replied, “Mr. President, I can’t support you because I’m waiting for this fellow from California, Ronald Reagan, to get into the race!” When the RNC staff heard of Mueller’s impudence, threats were made to cut off the Young Republicans’ funding, but nothing came of it.
2
However, Ford could count on the support of virtually all the elements in the party. RNC Chairman Mary Louise Smith was pulling for Ford’s nomination. Still, Eddie Mahe, her astute aide, had made sure the party took an official “hands off ” approach to the Presidential contest by getting the Executive Committee of the RNC to agree to a posture of official neutrality in January of 1975.
3
Reagan operatives, especially Nofziger, accused the RNC of a smokescreen—while the top floor of the RNC might have been technically uncommitted, the other floors were a beehive of pro-Ford activity.
4
Meanwhile, Reagan’s own California team worked feverishly to promote him and his views to a broader audience than ever before. Early in 1975, Deaver and Hannaford, through the Copley News Service syndicate, signed up dozens of newspapers to carry Reagan’s columns, published twice per week, and recruited hundreds of radio stations to carry his radio commentaries, broadcast every weekday. In 1975, they expected to generate over six hundred thousand dollars in income for “the Governor,” as everyone referred to him. He was also fetching five thousand dollars per speech on what Reagan called the “mashed potato circuit.”
From some quarters, Hannaford and Deaver had been accused of putting their own interests ahead of Reagan’s political future. In Reagan’s waning days in Sacramento, they had agreed to form “Deaver and Hannaford,” a public relations firm whose major client would be Reagan. They presented their plan to handle Reagan’s forthcoming private career, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan quickly agreed.
In fact, Reagan needed the money. He had a home in Pacific Palisades and was in the process of buying a six hundred-acre ranch in Santa Barbara. He had a wife and children to support and, on top of it all, in an incredibly petty and vindictive move, the Democratic-controlled California legislature reduced Reagan’s scheduled pension from $49,000 per year to $19,000 per year. Former Governor Brown, whom Reagan had defeated eight years earlier, was receiving a pension thousands above the amount Reagan was to receive.
When possible, Reagan liked to sneak away to his new ranch with his wife, where they were in the process of slowly remodeling the tiny house that was built around the turn of the century. The ranch was located twenty-nine miles outside of Santa Barbara, and he renamed it
Rancho del Cielo
—“Ranch in the Sky.”
Ronald Reagan loved the ranch. Owning it was the fulfillment of a lifetime dream, and while Nancy Reagan was less than enthusiastic about the ranch, she knew how her husband loved it and gamely went along.
Mrs. Reagan’s taste for the property diminished even further years later. On one occasion, heavy rains had forced snakes out of their lairs and onto the ranch, including under some buildings. Reagan knew his wife’s extreme dislike for snakes and proceeded to capture them and bag them to release off the property. Reagan had placed the bag of snakes in the front seat of the vehicle they used to drive to the ranch. As they drove along the harrowing, several miles-long, single lane, dirt and gravel road with sheer drops of several hundred feet, Reagan had forgotten to tell his wife about the bag of snakes until her shriek reminded him of his oversight. She loved the ranch even less after that episode.
Deaver and Hannaford were personally close to the Reagans, and each man brought differing talents to their business. Hannaford, quiet and bespectacled, drafted many of Reagan’s speeches. Deaver was shorter, intense, and a shrewd negotiator. They opened offices in Los Angeles to accommodate Reagan’s travels. Reagan was living in Pacific Palisades and, according to Hannaford, “wanted our offices fifteen minutes from his home and fifteen minutes from the airport.” One or the other would travel with Reagan and they provided him with an office in their eighth floor suite where he would spend a couple of days per week.
5
Although their hot new public relations firm had other clients, they committed countless hours of work and tireless devotion to Ronald Reagan, their “flagship” client. He represented 60 percent of their business, and his work alone took up the time of seven staff members who did research, answered mail, and scheduled his appointments.
Reagan, for most of his political career, had been dogged by rumors that he was “lazy.” In fact, he crisscrossed the country dozens of times in 1975, speaking for candidates, before organizations, doing interviews (including the
Tonight
Show),
attending meetings; all in all, a dizzying whirlwind of activity.
Reagan was receiving some fifteen hundred pieces of mail per month including over a hundred speaking invitations. Helene von Damm, his personal secretary, would sort through the invitations and turn them over to the two principals. Reagan was on the road approximately one week out of every month.
The columns—sometimes ghosted by Hannaford, Jeff Bell, and Pat Buchanan—were syndicated by Copley News Service to over eighty newspapers across the country. Many of Reagan’s columns were forwarded to the Oval Office by Donald Rumsfeld. Though Ford professed publicly to not be thinking about the 1976 election or Reagan, he was in fact being sent numerous memos and analyses of Reagan, including his record as Governor.
The radio commentaries usually took two full days per month to record. At the height of their popularity, the programs reached twenty to thirty million people each week. Although others took a turn at drafting Reagan’s columns, according to Deaver, Reagan himself wrote most of the radio commentaries after reviewing the current events with his staff.
6
Every three weeks, Reagan would record his commentaries with producer and syndicator Harry O’Connor at his studio at the corner of Hollywood Avenue and Vine Street. O’Connor then distributed the commentaries to subscribing radio stations around the country. Reagan had gotten the idea from his old friend, actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. who was also doing radio commentaries with O’Connor. Reagan would read fifteen five-minute commentaries that would be put onto record albums for most stations and onto reel tape for others. Since they were taped well in advance of their actual broadcast, Deaver, Hannaford, and Reagan had to choose their issues carefully. Something that was a hot topic of national debate one day might be forgotten by the following week.
Some in Reagan’s camp were playing their version of the “Ford won’t run” game, aided by the
U.S. News and World Report
article Ford had written in 1973,
7
and a “Periscope” item in
Newsweek
from December 1974 which said much the same. But adding to Reagan’s instinct to get into the race was the barrage of messages coming from the Republican National Committee about the need to “broaden the base of the party,” which Reagan and his supporters took as a rebuke of conservatism.
In March 1975,
Newsweek
ran a cover story on Reagan titled “Ready on the Right.” Still, he was anything but ready to take the plunge.