Transcript: Chapter 04

Narrator: There had long been Communists in Hollywood writers and directors quietly exercising their influence in relative freedom. But as the United States and the Soviet Union slid into the Cold War, they were eyed with growing suspicion. Reagan confronted Communist activism in 1946, when as a member of the Screen Actor's Guild board he was asked to mediate a dispute between rival unions. One was led by a rumored Communist, Herb Sorrel. Sorrel's union went on strike. "The leadership does not want a settlement." Reagan concluded. "It stands to gain by continued disorder and disruption."

Morris: Reagan liked order, stability and security. And the fact that they were involved in physical violence at the studio gate, which he personally experienced: buses being overturned, windows smashed, stones thrown, bottles brandished, some bloodshed. The fact that he personally witnessed this, personally experienced it, associated it with Red, as he would have said, Red domination of the union. That's what turned him.

Narrator: Sorrel and Reagan went head to head. When Reagan crossed the picket line outside Warner Bros., Sorrell called for a boycott of his movies. Reagan was called a fascist.

An anonymous phone caller threatened to disfigure his face so he could never act again.

He began carrying a gun. "Now I knew from first hand experience how Communists used lies, deceit and violence to advance the cause of Soviet expansionism," Reagan later recalled.

Dallek: He's the heroic figure battling against Communism. It's not simply that he's fighting against Communism, but he's rescuing the Screen Actor's Guild. He's rescuing Hollywood, he's helping to rescue the country from the, ah the Communist menace.

Jack Dales, Executive Director, SAG: His effort was to deny them any real foothold in our guild. For example I recall at one membership meeting as he addressed the audience, he said, "you know, of course, that we have some Communists here." And he pointed. "They're going to try to make 11 or 12 people sound like hundreds." And he fought all the way, very hard and very diligently and I think successfully.

Narrator: Reagan became an informant for the FBI. And in 1947, as president of the Screen Actor's Guild, he testified as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Reagan: "I will be frank with you that as a citizen I would hesitate, or I would not like to see any political party outlawed on the basis of its political ideology because we've spent 170 years in this country on the basis that democracy is strong enough to stand up and fight for itself against the inroads of any ideology, no matter how much we may disagree with it. However, if it is proven that this organization is the agent of a foreign power, or is in any way not a legitimate political party, and I think the government is capable of doing that, if the proof is there, then that is another matter."

Narrator: Ten writers and directors were sentenced to prison, not for being Communists, but for refusing to cooperate with the Committee. They and many others were included in a "blacklist" and denied work.

Cannon: Reagan went along with the blacklist. Now, I don't think this is, I don't think he descended the moral depths or anything. He did what most people did and he did it somewhat more reluctantly and somewhat more slowly than most of them. But the fact is, is that the blacklist is a blemish.

Narrator: Reagan had discovered his first political passion -- anti-Communism. He paid a high price for his obsession.

Cannon: Reagan came home and was told, this is over. The marriage is over. And that he was totally stunned by it, that he was, it was like he was hit by a ton of bricks and it was a very, very hard thing for him to accept or get over.

Narrator: "Perhaps I should have let someone else save the world," he later wrote, "and ... saved my own home."

Morris: Reagan was in deep depression. He'd lost his wife, he breaks his leg in an amateur baseball game and is hospitalized for most of 1949. And by the time he hobbled out of the hospital on crutches he was a changed man. And I remember him saying once over dinner telling the story of that awful year. "And then along came Nancy Davis and saved my soul."

Narrator: When Ronald Reagan met Nancy Davis she was a young actress under contract at MGM. Wealthy and socially well connected, she shared with Ronald the experience of an insecure childhood. Abandoned by her father, Nancy was left in the care of an aunt while her mother, actress Edith Lucket toured the country. Nancy was eight when Edith married a prominent Chicago neurosurgeon, Loyal Davis. Almost overnight, she entered a world of privilege.

In 1949 when she was mistakenly included on a list of Hollywood Communists, Nancy sought Ronald Reagan's help to clear her name. They were married in a private ceremony in 1952. Seven months later, Patti was born.

Patti Davis, Daughter: My parents have about as close a relationship as I've ever seen anyone have. They really, sort of, complete the complete each other. They're kind of two halves of a circle.

Ron Reagan: He's a guy who is almost impossible to dislike. Who always thinks the best of people. Can't believe that anybody who's, you know, ever met him, would ever want to do anything bad to him, ah, would ever want to go behind his back, would ever want to stab him in the back. Um, that's just not within his realm of... of thinking. He just can't conceive of it. Nancy on the other hand is ... is far more cunning about that sort of stuff. Ah, she has no trouble understanding stabbing in the back.

Stuart Spencer, Senior Political Adviser: The best way to describe their relationship politically was that you know he was the CEO, he was the boss, and she was the Personnel Director. As they went through life it was always Nancy had to take a look at you. She'd research you. She'd find out about you so she spent all of her time looking for people that would serve her man well.

Narrator: With Nancy as his partner, Reagan resumed his life. As president of the Screen Actor's Guild he earned a reputation as a tough and skillful negotiator battling studios and producers. But as an actor, he was failing.

In the early fifties he was cast in unmemorable roles; in unmemorable films like Cattle Queen of Montana; opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo; Hellcats of the Navy -- with Nancy -- was a flop.

Maureen Reagan, Daughter: It was a very bad time, he was about as low as he could get at that point. He just couldn't. He couldn't understand why a career that he loved so much and felt that he had been good to and at was slipping through his fingers.

Narrator: Reagan took a job at the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, singing and dancing in a third rate vaudeville show.

Nancy Reagan: He rolled with it, but it hurt, of course, when the... when the career dried up, of course it hurt, it would anybody. But he again... he'd get back to the deep belief that everything happens for a reason.

And that whatever happened to him there was a reason for it.

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